From United Press International

HONG KONG — Shares of Chinese business-to-business website Alibaba.com nearly tripled Tuesday on their initial public offering debut in Hong Kong.

The flagship unit of China Alibaba Group, which also runs Yahoo! China, eBay Inc. competitor Taobao, PayPal Inc. rival Alipay and web services business Alisoft, recently raised $1.5 billion when it sold 17 percent of its enlarged share capital in the biggest IPO ever by a Chinese Internet company.

Tuesday’s $5.09-a-share closing price — up from a start of $1.74 — sent the company’s market value to $26 billion.

But analysts and fund managers said the share price was detached from Alibaba.com’s fundamentals, The Wall Street Journal reported.

For example, its price-to-earnings ratio of 320 times the company’s forecast 2007 earnings compares with a P/E of 177 for Chinese search engine Baidu.com and 52 for rival business-to-business search engine Global Sources, both of which trade on the Nasdaq stock market, the newspaper said.

Alibaba.com, which connects small manufacturers in China and elsewhere with potential customers, leads China’s B2B market, with a 69 percent share, Chinese technology firm Analysys International said.

Website tracker Alexa.com ranked Alibaba.com as the most visited import/export site, the Journal said.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International