The Hong Kong and Palo Alto offices of the Firm represented Alibaba Group Holding Limited (“Alibaba Group”) in connection with its debut offering of US$8 billion aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured notes, consisting of US$300 million floating rate notes due 2017, US$1 billion 1.625% notes due 2017, US$2.25 billion 2.5% notes due 2019, US$1.5 billion 3.125% notes due 2021, US$2.25 billion 3.6% notes due 2024 and US$700 million 4.5% notes due 2034. The notes are rated A1 by Moody’s, A+ by Standard & Poor’s and A+ by Fitch.

The offering was conducted pursuant to Rule 144A and Regulation S. Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, Singapore Branch, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C. acted as joint book-running managers for the offering. Alibaba Group intends to use the net proceeds of the offering, together with cash on hand, to repay its existing term facility. The offering is the largest corporate bond offering in Asia in history.

Alibaba Group is the largest online and mobile commerce company in the world in terms of gross merchandise volume in 2013. In the twelve months ended September 30, 2014, Alibaba Group’s China retail marketplaces generated US$328 billion of GMV.

The Simpson Thacher team for the transaction included Leiming Chen, Daniel Fertig, David Lee and Bruce Sun (Corporate – Hong Kong); Bill Hinman, Daniel Webb, Kelli Schultz, Meredith Pressfield and Duncan Taylor (Corporate – Palo Alto); and Katharine Moir and Noah Metz (Tax – Palo Alto).