Alibaba Group's valuation at $168-bn on record Q4 earnings

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group's estimated valuation rose 9.8 per cent to $168 billion after it posted a record 66 per cent rise in fourth-quarter revenue.

The Hangzhou-based is now valued at $168 billion, based on the average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Yahoo Inc, which holds a 24-per cent stake in Alibaba, saw its stock rising by as much as 9 per cent in trading yesterday after Alibaba's Q4 results.

Privately-owned Alibaba's Q4 results were revealed by Yahoo, which has to disclose its financial data as part of its own quarterly reports.

Alibaba this week reported $1.35 billion in profit for its fourth quarter, more than double of what it made during the same period a year earlier, while revenue jumped 66 per cent, to $3.06 billion.

The record sales and valuation comes ahead of Alibaba's initial public offering filing in the US, expected next week.

Although Alibaba, run by its founder Jack Ma, has not revealed the size of the IPO, Bloomberg said that it may sell around a 12-per cent stake, raking in $20 billion, based on its current $168 billion valuation.

Last month, the company said in a statement that it had decided on starting the US IPO process, ending speculation about where it would go public.

Citing sources, Thomson Reuters reported that Alibaba was in discussions with Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Group, J P Morgan, and Morgan Stanley for lead underwriting roles.

The IPO would be the most high-profile since Facebook Inc's listing nearly two years ago, which raised more than $16 billion.

Citing an analyst note from Macquarie Group, Bloomberg reported that Alibaba's IPO may only contain e-commerce business platforms including Alibaba.com, Taobao and Tmall, Ben Schachter, while other assets, such as the group's microfinancing business and Alibaba Cloud, may not be part of the offering.

Meanwhile, Jack Ma, who holds a7.4-per cent stake in Alibaba, and his team are taking steps to rapidly consolidate the company's position as a conglomerate, across the widening reaches of China's booming entrepreneurial economy.

Ma told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview in 2012 that the company would be totally different in the next five years and added that the team at Alibaba wanted to build up a company in Chinese history that nobody had seen before.

The first three months of the year saw Ma make deals at a scorching pace. Many but not all of them too aim at rival Tencent, currently considered Asia's largest internet company.

Last month, Alibaba announced its intention to spend HK$6.24 billion ($804 million) to take a controlling stake in ChinaVision Media, a Hong Kong-listed company that, among other things, owned the Chinese rights for mobile TV broadcasts of English Premier League soccer.

The deal would give Alibaba a massive library of movies, TV shows, and sports broadcasts, even as it kept the programming out of Tencent's hands.

Alibaba had also invested aggressively in gaming and instant messaging, two services that had not been central to Ma's vision for Alibaba until late last year.

It also acquired a 10 per cent stake in Hong Kong-listed Chinese department store operator Intime.