Maples and Calder, the Maples Group’s law firm, advised Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. as Cayman Islands counsel on a placement of 710 million newly issued ordinary shares that raised HK$80 billion in gross proceeds, according to the firm.
The transaction represents a major capital raise for Alibaba, the Chinese technology company whose businesses include e-commerce, artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Maples Group described the deal as the largest primary follow-on offering by a company listed in both Hong Kong and the United States.
Alibaba completed a record-breaking $10.2 billion share placement to fund its expansion into artificial intelligence and cloud computing infrastructure. All of the proceeds are earmarked for full-stack AI capabilities, with about 60% going toward global computing infrastructure expansion and 40% dedicated to hyperscale AI data centres.
The Maples team was led by Corporate Partner Karen Zhang Pallaras, with assistance from Associate Janelle Ho. Both are based in Hong Kong.
Maples Group said it has worked with Alibaba for more than two decades, including advising on the company’s landmark US initial public offering in 2014 and its secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2019, which was the largest IPO in Hong Kong that year.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Fangda Partners served as U.S. and Chinese counsel, respectively, to Alibaba. Linklaters and Haiwen & Partners served as U.S. and Chinese counsel, respectively, to the underwriters.
