Alibaba goes public in HK, still a question IBUonline is a B2B foreign trade platform which has recruited many

China suppliers and international buyers as members which is a free service. IBUonline also cares about industry news such as Alibaba going public in HK. Alibaba may abandon the plan to sell the companys shares in Hong Kong and instead switch its listing to New York, where the dual structure is permissible, and has been utilized by leading tech firms such as Google, LinkedIn, Groupon, Yelp and Zynga. The concept of a dual-class share structure is different from ordinary and preferred shares for company stockholders. Ordinary and preferred shares encompass two different share categories with different voting rights, entitlements and risk exposure. Dual-class shares, on the other hand, are two classes of shares that are identical in their entitlements, in which one class of shareholder is limited to only one vote per share. Thus, the companys founders and top executives have the ability to control the majority shareholder voting power with a relatively small amount of equity in the company. Such power is evident at Facebook. Post-IPO, Mark Zuckerberg owns just 18 percent of the company, yet controls 69 percent of the voting shares, giving him total dominion. The theory goes that the right power in the right hands in dual-class structures protects against potential takeovers, preserves innovation and long-term creative gain, i.e., value, versus the short-termism of large institutional investors whose benchmark is present-day price. Individual small investors, who care more about dividend payment levels and the capital appreciation of company shares than voting rights, also prefer the dual-class structure. Jack Ma owns a 7.4 percent stake in Alibaba Group, with Yahoo and Softbank together accounting for more than 70 percent of its ownership. IBUonline thinks such moves will set a very good example for other B2B e-business companies as IBU has planned to go public, which may not fulfill soon.