WHISPERS: Bankers Say Alibaba Should IPO At A $100 Billion Valuation - And That's Great News For Marissa Mayer
Right now, investment bankers are battling to win the business.
A source from that industry who has seen some of the pitchbooks floating around says that a few of the bankers are suggesting that Alibaba should go public at a valuation of $100 billion.
Just because bankers are suggesting such a high valuation doesn't mean Alibaba will go for it.
Last week, the WSJ reported Alibaba would IPO at a valuation of $70 billion or more.
Either way, Alibaba is going to be worth a lot more than this fall's other big IPO, Twitter.
Alibaba's high valuation is very good news for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Yahoo has agreed to sell its stake in Alibaba when it IPOs. At a $100 billion, Yahoo will gross about $7 billion.
$7 billion buys a lot of Tumblr-sized startups. Which is good. Because how else is she going to attract hundreds of millions of new users on mobile?