03-16-2014, 03:57 AM
The Chinese Internet industry is coming of age, as some of its biggest players prepare to start new chapters as publicly traded companies -- in the United States.
The biggest of them all, the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group, is aiming to file for an initial public offering in New York as soon as next month, people briefed on the matter said on Friday. Several analysts value Alibaba at north of $130 billion, and many predict that its I.P.O. may raise more than the $16 billion that Facebook fetched in its market debut nearly two years ago.
And Weibo, a major Chinese microblogging company seen as that country's answer to Twitter, filed on Friday for its own stock sale.