Banks eyeing Alibaba IPO skip some US$100m of business

[HONG KONG] Every big bank in town wanted a piece of the Alibaba Group initial public offering, set to be the biggest technology listing ever. So much so that, according to Thomson Reuters data, major banks skipped an estimated US$100 million in combined fees that they could have made from work for other clients over the past year.

People familiar with the matter say that's because the banks didn't want to irk the Chinese e-commerce giant by working for its rivals or acquisition targets, and risk losing out on business in an IPO expected to be bigger than Facebook's US$16 billion listing in 2012.

Alibaba's giant IPO comes amid a wave of deals in China's tech sector, putting banks in a tricky situation when it comes to backing clients in the industry. In a sector that's red-hot, companies are sensitive about letting advisers work on deals that run parallel to those of competitors for fear of confidential information leaking out.