Masayoshi Son surpassed Fast Retailing Co. Chairman Tadashi Yanaias Japan’s richest person yesterday afterSoftBank Corp. surged 16 percent since the start of last week.
Son, 57, has a net worth of $16.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Yanai, the country’s second-richest person, controls a $16.2 billion fortune.
Softbank owns about 34 percent ofAlibaba Group Holding Ltd. and is benefiting from plans by China’s biggest e-commerce company to raise the amount it’s seeking in an initial public offering to as much as $21.8 billion, coming a step closer to breaking a global fundraising record.
“The impending IPO of Alibaba does make Masayoshi Son a lot wealthier,” Desmond Chua, a Singapore-based strategist at CMC Markets, said by phone. “While Internet stocks have been volatile, there is good value in some of them. The growing popularity of smartphones suggest the advertising revenue some of these companies would pick up.”
Alibaba increased the top end of its IPO price range this week. Even at the higher price, it’s offering shares at a price-to-earnings multiple that’s below what other publicly traded Chinese Internet peers fetch. Founder Jack Ma told prospective investors in Hong Kong this week that he won’t seek too high a valuation, two people who attended the meeting said.
No comments:
Post a Comment