According to various press reports, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has set the range for its initial public offering: between $60 and $66 per share.
Bloomberg calculates the company would raise as much as $21.1 billion at the high end of that range -- which would make it the biggest U.S. IPO ever.
The Wall Street Journal stated that the massive company would give its employees, investors, and insiders the option to purchase their own shares at the IPO price before it begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange this fall.
Alibaba president Jack Ma, who will become a billionaire, at least on paper, will embark on a trip across select American cities to drum up hype before the launch. That odyssey will end September 18 in New York City, various press reports stated. Banking giant Barclay's has been tasked by Alibaba to handle the IPO. Goldman Sachs will also help chaperone the offering.
Alibaba's IPO has been widely expected and anticipated and is being touted by the American and Chinese press as one of the biggest pending IPOs in history. For its part, Yahoo owns a 24 percent stake in Alibaba. The Economist last year valued the China-based Internet portal at between $55 billion all of the way up to $120 billion.