Nasdaq's Facebook Trading Glitch Pushed Alibaba To Choose NYSE For Listing: Report

When Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. unveils what’s expected to be the largest initial public offering in history this week, it will do so on the New York Stock Exchange because executives were concerned about Nasdaq’s ability to handle such a large offering, according to a new report.

The Chinese e-commerce company would have been all but certain to be included on the Nasdaq 100 Index before the end of 2014. Yet executives, citing lingering questions after Facebook Inc.’s (NASDAQ:FB) botched $14 billion IPO two years ago, opted to list on the NYSE, two sources told Reuters. Facebook’s highly anticipated debut was delayed by hours in 2012 because of a glitch in Nasdaq’s systems triggered by a massive demand.

“It was a close race, and we wish Alibaba well,” a Nasdaq spokesman told Reuters while maintaining that the 2012 issue has been resolved.

This comes after Alibaba raised its IPO price to a maximum of $68 per share, an increase on the previous maximum price of $66 per share. The new maximum values the company at $170 billion. That approximation is lower than previous estimates, although Aswath Damodaran, a professor of finance at New York University, wrote earlier this month that the stock price could rise by as much as 10 percent when Alibaba begins trading on Friday.

“For better or worse, bankers are not feted for getting the price right but for getting it wrong, albeit in one direction and not by too much,” he wrote, as quoted by Quartz.