Alibaba chooses HKSE over NASDAQ

China's leading e-commerce company, Alibaba, will sell shares in Hong Kong rather than follow the typical tech enterprise route of a NASDAQ listing, the South China Morning Post reported. It was suggested that Alibaba founder Jack Ma wants to steer the US$1 billion offering to Hong Kong rather than the US due to stringent American listing rules. "Jack Ma is a Sarbanes-Oxley hater and doesn't feel it's necessary to do a US listing," a source said. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was introduced five years ago in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals with a view to making corporate officers more accountable for the behavior of publicly listed companies. However, many companies complain that compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley is prohibitively expensive. Chinese tech firms have still flocked to NASDAQ, as it offers higher valuations, but it is not thought that Alibaba will struggle for investors in Hong Kong. The listing will only include Alibaba's business-to-business unit, which matches Chinese traders with those around the world and operates on a subscription basis.