Seeing strong demand, Alibaba raises share price range for this week’s IPO

Alibaba originally pegged its shares at a range of $60 to $66 for the upcoming IPO. But today Alibaba amended its SEC filing to indicate that the Chinese ecommerce titan will likely debut somewhere between $66 and $68 per share.

The adjusted price range also means a shift in how much Alibaba could raise – that’s now gone up from an aggregated offering price of US$24.3 billion last week to US$25 billion if it debuts at the new maximum share price. (Note that an aggregated offering is inclusive of the possibility of more shares put on the table after the listing.)

The higher price range is likely due to higher than anticipated demand for Alibaba shares. Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma is on the Asian leg of the firm’s IPO roadshow, and indicated yesterday that the company will expand aggressively in the US and Europe following the IPO.

See: Here’s a roundup of Alibaba’s investments in US-based companies

Alibaba is scheduled to list on the NYSE on Friday under the ‘BABA’ ticker.

Alibaba – best known in China for its Tmall and Taobao estores – will cash in more than the US$16 billion that Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) raised in May 2012, becoming the biggest US IPO ever.