Can’t face waiting for the Alibaba mega-listing? Don’t worry, investment bankers have got you covered.
Though the initial public offering of the Chinese ecommerce group – which promises to be one of the largest in history – is now in motion, some hedge funds in Hong Kong have already been loading up on synthetic shares, sold by investment banks as certificates.
The process involves taking one of Alibaba’s two biggest shareholders – Yahoo or SoftBank – evaluating their constituent parts, and then using short positions to remove everything that the company owns other than its Alibaba stake. Yahoo holds 24 per cent of Alibaba, while SoftBank owns 37 per cent.