
Why Skills-First Leadership Is Replacing the Ivy League Playbook in the C-Suite
The old prestige pyramid—where Ivy League degrees and blue-chip consulting backgrounds paved the way to the CEO seat—is cracking.
June 01, 2021: -In less than a year, Alibaba rival Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has raised $12 billion through public offerings in Hong Kong and New York.
The listings involved JD’s subsidiaries and its secondary stock offering in Hong Kong. According to public filings, Bank of America was the only investment bank to participate in every single listing.
Since June, the JD affiliates that have gone public are JD Logistics, the company’s delivery unit, which went public in Hong Kong on Friday and produced about $3.2 billion. Its vast network of warehouses and over 200,000 delivery workers have given parent JD.com an edge in e-commerce against Alibaba.
Shares stopped 3.3% higher on the first day of trading after increasing above 18% at one point.
JD Health, selling medicine and runs an online health consulting platform, increased nearly $4 billion in a Hong Kong listing in December in the previous year. The stock is up over 50% since the IPO.
Parent JD.com made a total of nearly $4.5 billion in a secondary listing in Hong Kong on June 18 in the previous year.
The Hong Kong-listed stock is up about 25% after that. The New York-listed shares are up over 280% since listing on the Nasdaq in 2014.
Grocery delivery company Dada Nexus in which strategic investor JD gained majority ownership this year — raised $320 million in its public offering on the Nasdaq on June 5. The stock is up about 59% since its IPO.
The four stock offerings raised a gross total of $12.02 billion.
According to data from Wind Information, the four stocks, not including the New York parent, now have a market capitalization of about $198 billion. Figures can vary slightly due to factors such as foreign exchange rates and the calculation of bank fees.
The old prestige pyramid—where Ivy League degrees and blue-chip consulting backgrounds paved the way to the CEO seat—is cracking.
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