Asian online conglomerate Alibaba is in a race against time to complete arrangements for its potentially record-breaking IPO in the US, a report says.

Chinese online conglomerate Alibaba is battling to complete its potentially huge initial public offering within August, the Financial Times reported, which could mark one of the biggest liquidity events that wealth managers will witness in years. (For an analysis of the event in this publication, see here.)

The newspaper cited unnamed sources for its report. It said the self-imposed deadline is in danger of slipping as the company gets close to the moment when it will have to decide whether to go ahead with an international marketing trip involving its top executives.

The IPO – to be held on the New York Stock Exchange rather than Hong Kong (which has raised some local Asia eyebrows) could raise $20 billion or more, reports have said. The largest listing to date involving an Asia business, the FT said, was that of Agricultural Bank of China, at $22 billion, in 2010. The Alibaba float could rival that of Facebook in 2012 – and hopefully not be attended by technical glitches and an an initially disappointing price performance in the stock.

The report said Alibaba still hopes to begin a marketing trip for the deal as early as 21 July.