Behind the Screen on Alibaba's Stake in Weibo

Alibaba Group's US$ 586 million investment in Sina Corp.'s twitter-like Weibo service made waves across China's Internet industry recently. The deal is the largest ever of its kind among Internet companies in China.

In the short run, the deal is good news for both Alibaba and Sina Weibo. First, it offers a sound valuation of Sina's Weibo unit, at around US$ 3.3 billion. The valuation was lower than the US$ 5 billion offer made by DST Global in 2011, but is still reasonable considering the US$ 3.7 billion market value of Sina.com