Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, Goodwin Procter, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Debevoise & Plimpton have advised on a deal which has seen a consortium of investors offer $1.6bn (£1bn) for a stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, writes The Asian Lawyer.

The consortium includes Silicon Valley private equity firm Silver Lake Technology Management, Moscow-based venture capital group Digital Sky Technologies (DST) Global, Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings and Yunfeng Capital, an investment group led by Alibaba founder and chief executive officer Jack Ma.

If the consortium's tender offer is fully subscribed, the consortium will acquire slightly less than 5% of the company, which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Paul Weiss partners Jeanette Chan in Hong Kong and Tong Yu in Tokyo are advising Silver Lake, Temasek Holdings and a group of Hong Kong-based individual investors on the deal. Beijing-based Haiwen & Partners is Chinese counsel to the same group of investors.

DST, which also owns stakes in other high-profile tech companies like Facebook, Zynga Game Networks and Groupon, is being advised by Goodwin Procter Hong Kong office chair Yash Rana.

Simpson Thacher is advising Yunfeng, with Hong Kong partners Leiming Chen and Philip Culhane leading the firm's representation.

Debevoise partner Thomas Britt, also based in Hong Kong, is advising Alibaba. Britt previously advised Alibaba in 2005, when Yahoo! invested $1bn (£643m) in the Chinese company in exchange for a 40% stake. The latest investment values Alibaba at around $32bn (£20.6bn).

The Asian lawyer is a US affiliate title of Legal Week.