Alibaba Group has proposed taking private its main unit Alibaba.com. The group announced an offer of HKD 13.50 per share cash for the 27 percent of Alibaba.com it doesn't own. That's a premium of 46 percent on the company's share price the day before the announcement. Alibaba Group noted that the offer was not conditional on agreeing a separate asset exchange with Yahoo!, which holds a 40 percent stake in Alibaba Group. The bid was announced alongside annual results from Alibaba Group. These showed revenues up 15.5 percent to CNY 6.42 billion, and EBITDA rising 21.9 percent to CNY 1.94 billion. Net profit improved 16.6 percent to CNY 1.71 billion, and EPS rose 22.6 percent 40.7 cents. Alibaba had over 50.8 million registered users for its Chinese e-commerce site at the end of 2011, up 16.1 percent from 2010. The international version of the site had 41.6 percent more users, at 25.5 million. Together the two sites had over 10 million merchant storefronts.
