Dive Brief:

• Alibaba is seeking loans totaling as much as $4 billion to finance its expansion ambitions, including acquisitions, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• The Chinese e-retail giant has already spent billions on such investments in the past year, boosting its mobile and logistics efforts in China and investing in Indian e-commerce company Snapdeal and payments company Paytm.

• Sources told the Wall Street Journal that Alibaba initiated talks with banks with requests for up to $3 billion, but that the figure has since increased to as much as $4 billion.

Dive Insight:

Alibaba is already big—very, very big—and apparently sees little reason not to grow even bigger. 

The Chinese e-retail giant smashed its own astounding record last year for Singles' Day, a shopping holiday it concocted from a low-key grassroots event begun in China by college students years ago. In results American retailers (even Amazon) can only dream of, Alibaba took in a whopping $4 billion in sales on that day alone, toppling its previous-year record of $9.3 billion and assisting rival retailer JD.com, which also reaped benefits from Singles' Day publicity.

Alibaba had faltered after investors grew skittish about its prospects in the wake of its record-breaking IPO in 2014, but shares have recovered somewhat after the company beat estimates in its latest quarter.