At US$25b, Alibaba IPO becomes the world's largest

[NEW YORK] Alibaba Group Holding's initial public offering became the biggest ever at US$25 billion, after bankers exercised an option to boost the deal size by 15 per cent on strong demand, a person familiar with the matter said.

The underwriters exercised a so-called greenshoe option to sell an additional 48 million American depositary shares, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup managed the offering.

Shares of Alibaba soared 38 per cent on their Friday trading debut, the biggest first-day jump for an IPO of at least US$10 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Its dominance of a booming e-commerce industry in the country of 1.36 billion people attracted interest from money managers including Fidelity …