"As Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. gears up for its Initial Public Offering. All eyes are on where it might list. The company could go public either in Hong Kong or New York.
Whether the IPO will happen in Hong Kong largely depends on whether the city’s stock exchange and securities regulator accept the company’s request to let its “partners,” which include its founder and senior management, have control over the makeup of directors on its board.
On Tuesday, Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma sent a letter to employees explaining what the partners are, and why he thinks it is important to let the partners have more power to determine the company’s future. “We believe that only a group of people who are passionate about the company and are mission-driven will be able to protect the company from external pressure from competition and temptation to seek short-term gains,” Mr. Ma said in the letter. “Many companies quickly deteriorate into mediocre commercial entities after they have lost their founder culture.”
Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company that runs online marketplaces such as Taobao and Tmall, introduced the partnership model in 2010 and has elected 28 partners over the past three years''.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
