The Firm represented Alibaba Group Holding Limited (“Alibaba”) in connection with an offering of US$5.0 billion aggregate principal amount of 0.50% Convertible Senior Notes due 2031 (the “Notes”), which included the full exercise of the initial purchasers’ option to purchase additional notes. In addition, the Firm represented Alibaba in connection with capped call transactions entered into with certain of the initial purchasers and/or their respective affiliates and/or other financial institutions concurrently with the offering of the Notes.
Alibaba will use the net proceeds from the notes offering to (i) repurchase its American depositary shares (the “ADSs”) concurrently with the pricing of the offering in privately negotiated transactions; (ii) fund further share repurchases under its existing share repurchase program; and (iii) fund the cost of entering into the capped call transactions.
The Simpson Thacher team included Roxane Reardon and Matt Hart (Capital Markets – New York and Houston); Daniel Fertig, Christopher Wong, Chenjing Shen, June Hu, Jeff Wong, Zhengyuan Fan, Christy Li (Capital Markets – Hong Kong); Jonathan Lindabury, Nathan Utterback and Mehrdad Alvandi (Derivatives); Jonathan Cantor, Edward Grais and Preston Irace (Tax); and Jeanne Annarumma and Pasco Struhs (ECEB).