By Beth St. Clair
Overheard: “I deleted all my social media accounts. But I kept my Snapchat account. That’s why it’s worth buying.” – As spoken by a millennial.
But what exactly are Snap’s investors, like this one, getting?
IPO
Investing In Alibaba Group: Sure Payoff Or Legal Nightmare?
By Yayi Ding
Last month, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group announced one of the biggest initial public offerings (IPOs) in US history, raising more than $21 billion USD. However, one could argue that the entire scheme might have been borderline illegal; of all the investors who “purchased” Alibaba’s stocks at IPO, none of them ended up actually owning a single share in Alibaba.
How could this be? Well, for starters, Chinese government regulations do not allow foreigners to own stock in Chinese Internet companies, Alibaba included. To circumvent these regulations and pursue an IPO on an American stock exchange, Alibaba had to adopt a complicated ownership structure known as a “Variable Interest Entity” (VIE). Through this structure, foreign shareholders do not buy into Alibaba, but rather buy into Alibaba Holdings, an offshore “holding company” that is registered in the Cayman Islands. Shareholders get a stake in the holding company and in Alibaba’s profits, but ultimately do not own shares in Alibaba and have no say in how the company is run. Continue reading
Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts 