(XINHUA)

Jack Ma, the founder and Chairman of Alibaba Group, the e-commerce titan in China, announced on March 16 that the company had chosen Wall Street as the site of an initial public offering that may value the firm at up to $120 billion.

Founded in 1999 and armed with a staff of more than 20,000 employees, the company's business-to-business online portal brings together Chinese manufacturers with foreign buyers across more than 240 countries.

The reason for Alibaba to list in the United States is that the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq allowed a corporate structure that gives top executives the right to nominate a majority of the company's board members even if their holdings are not substantial.