China should soon see its largest group of instant millionaires after Jack Ma, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Alibaba Group, announced on July 27 that the China's preeminent e-commerce company has initiated the listing of its B2B unit alibaba.com in Hong Kong later this year.

Alibaba's debut is expected to renew the former benchmark of hi-tech stock value in the Hong Kong market by raising HK$78 billion ($894 million). Through cashing in their stock options in the company, nearly 1,000 millionaires and multi-millionaires will emerge, outnumbering Internet search engine baidu.com's record of more than 200 at its initial public offering on Nasdaq in 2005. Ma will therefore become China's most successful millionaire maker to date.

Ma, 42, founded alibaba.com in 1999, to help match overseas buyers and Chinese suppliers on its online transaction platform. Over the past eight years, he has successfully steered the 18-man startup to become the world's most-visited online B2B marketplace, which has a market value estimated at $4 billion-$5 billion and serves a membership of 12 million from 200 countries. According to Analysis International, a Beijing-based IT research firm, alibaba.com accounted for more than 69 percent of China's B2B online trading in the first quarter of this year.

Ma expanded his business empire in 2003 by launching the C2C site taobao.com, followed by the online payment system Alipay the year later. In October 2005, Alibaba acquired Yahoo China and formed a long-term strategic partnership with Yahoo Inc. The newest member of the group, business software service company Alisoft, was incorporated earlier this year.

Ma sees the listing of Alibaba as just the first step in his vision for his company, now 40 percent owned by Yahoo!, and there's no mistake that he is aiming high.

If all goes well, shares of Alibaba will begin trading in September, after which the company will be allowed to increase investments and widen its lead in the world's most potentially lucrative market. Before that, Alibaba launched a subsidiary in Hong Kong this April and is planning to branch out in Japan in the third quarter, to bolster the imminent listing.