Alibaba expected to file US IPO next week

Jack Ma founded Alibaba in 1999 with a website offering 22 items. It now accounts for 70 per cent of all packages delivered in China

Chinese internet giant Alibaba looks set to float next week in the US, in what is expected to be the biggest initial public offering since Facebook.

E-commerce giant Alibaba, which offers services similar to Amazon, eBay and PayPal, is expected to file its prospectus with US regulators as soon as Monday, paving the way for a stock market listing this summer that could value the company at up to $200 billion (£120 billion).

Alibaba is expected to raise around $15 billion from the float, just short of what Facebook raised in 2012.

It comes as Yahoo’s fourth-quarter results revealed surging profits at Alibaba. The Hangzhou-based company does not publish its own financial results but Yahoo owns a 24% stake in Alibaba and discloses some of the company’s figures.

Alibaba’s revenue jumped 66% to nearly $3.1 billion in the last three months, while profit more than doubled from a year earlier to $1.4 billion.