Alibaba (9988.HK) shares fell 8% in early Hong Kong trading on Monday after the company finalised a HK$80 billion ($10.2 billion) share placement at HK$112.70 per share.

The placement priced 710 million new shares at an 8.4% discount to the prior close and is the largest primary follow‑on offering by a Hong Kong‑listed company and the third‑largest globally this year, according to Alibaba.

Alibaba reported quarterly earnings with net profit down 75% from a year earlier, a decline the company linked to increased spending on artificial‑intelligence projects.

The firm said it will allocate the proceeds to fund AI development and expand its cloud infrastructure, including the opening of a third data centre in South Korea that brings its network of availability zones to 104 across 30 regions.

The capital‑expenditure commitment, announced in October, specifies an investment of 380 billion yuan ($56.5 billion) over three years.

Alibaba had previously projected a payback period for AI investment of three years, but revised the estimate to two and a half years because of rising demand for AI services.