The superlatives came thick and fast to describe Alibaba’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. It was the world’s biggest, raising $25 billion after underwriters exercised an option for extra shares at the debut price of $68, and it was far ahead of Facebook’s IPO, which had held the record for a tech flotation. Alibaba’s share price rose 38% on the first day of trading, though it fell back somewhat in following sessions. Capping it all Jack Ma, who founded the company, was declared China’s wealthiest man and worth $25 billion, according to the Hurun Report in Shanghai. See article
Freeing Citizens
Royal Bank of Scotland erred on the side of caution by pricing the shares in its flotation ofCitizens Financial below the price range it had previously indicated. Citizens, based in Rhode Island and which RBS bought in 1988 during a period of expansion, raised $3 billion, making it the second-biggest stockmarket debut in America this year. Its share price rose 7% on the first day of trading. RBS still owns 75% of the bank.


Rocket Internet, a firm in Berlin that has backed e-commerce startups in 100 countries, said that it now expects to raise around €1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) from its IPO next month, double its initial target.
America’s Treasury department took its “first steps” to discourage companies from moving their tax base abroad to escape the taxman. Procedures that are used to qualify for such a move, called an inversion, are being curtailed, and companies that do invert will find it harder to tap their overseas cash piles without paying tax. Share prices wobbled in several companies that have plans to invert, including Medtronic and AbbVie. Still, the Treasury stopped short of prohibiting “earnings stripping”—piling debt onto the American unit to reduce taxes.
Still smarting over the imposition of Western sanctions, Russia’s Duma overwhelmingly backed a bill in its first reading that would limit foreign ownership of the media to 20%. If passed the legislation would markedly affect business titles such as Vedomosti, which has criticised the Kremlin for damaging the economy.
The tills don’t tally
Although it is trying to make a fresh start under a new chief executive, Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, became entangled in new difficulties after finding that it had overstated its first-half profit by £250m ($417m) because of an accounting irregularity. It suspended four executives ahead of an investigation and issued yet another profit warning. Investors headed for the checkouts; Tesco’s share price fell 12% in one day. See article
Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, said that an initial take-up of €82.6 billion ($106 billion) in new ultra-cheap financing by banks had been “within the range” he had expected, though it fell short of most economists’ forecasts. Around €400 billion in four-year loans at 0.15% is available to banks in two rounds. The second round is in December.
GlaxoSmithKline’s local subsidiary in China was found guilty of bribing doctors and hospitals and fined almost $500m, the biggest corporate penalty so far in China, according to state media. Mark Reilly, who ran GSK’s Chinese operations, was given a suspended prison sentence. The twists and turns in the case have been watched closely by foreign businesses. GSK, meanwhile, decided to replace Christopher Gent as chairman with Philip Hampton, who is currently the chairman of RBS.
This year’s frenzy of dealmaking in the drugs industry continued when Merck of Germany agreed to buy Sigma-Aldrich, which is based in St Louis and supplies laboratories with chemicals and other products, in a transaction valued at $17 billion.
Air France conceded to its pilots’ demands to end a crippling strike and offered to withdraw its plans to expand Transavia, its low-cost carrier.
He’s not sailing away just yet
Larry Ellison stepped aside as chief executive at Oracle to become chairman and chief technology officer, a move similar to that taken by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 2000. Oracle appointed two co-chief executives to replace Mr Ellison: Mark Hurd, who used to run Hewlett-Packard before resigning under a cloud in 2010, and Safra Catz, a longtime confidante of Mr Ellison. See article
BlackBerry’s new smartphone, the Passport, went on sale. It is the first device BlackBerry has developed under John Chen’s leadership and is a return to its roots; its square screen is designed for reading spreadsheets and documents and aimed at businesspeople, not general consumers.
DHL said that it would begin dispatching medicine to an island off the German coast bydrone. It is the first time that a “parcelcopter” will be used to make regular deliveries.