SHANGHAI: China's fintech giant Ant Group has no plan to initiate an initial public offering (IPO), it said on Sunday (Jan 8) in an emailed statement to Reuters.
“Ant Group has been focusing on its business rectification and optimisation, and does not have a plan for an IPO,” the company spokesperson said.
Ant Group said on Saturday that its founder Jack Ma no longer controls the company after a series of shareholding adjustments that saw him give up most of his voting rights.
Ma’s ceding of control comes as Ant is nearing the completion of its two-year regulatory-driven restructuring, with Chinese authorities poised to impose a fine of more than US$1 billion (RM4.4 billion) on the firm, Reuters reported in November.
China’s domestic A-share market requires companies to wait three years after a change in control to list. The wait is two years on Shanghai's Nasdaq-style Star market, and one year in Hong Kong.
Ant’s US$37 billion IPO, which would have been the world’s largest, was cancelled at the last minute in November 2020, leading to a forced restructuring of the financial technology firm and speculation the Chinese billionaire would have to cede control.
A former English teacher, Ma previously possessed more than 50% of voting rights at Ant but the changes will mean that his share falls to 6.2%, according to Reuters calculations.
Ma only owns a 10% stake in Ant, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, but has exercised control over the company through related entities, according to Ant's IPO prospectus filed with the exchanges in 2020.
Hangzhou Yunbo, an investment vehicle for Ma, had control over two other entities that own a combined 50.5% stake of Ant, the prospectus showed.
Ant operates China's ubiquitous mobile payment app Alipay, the world's largest, which has more than 1 billion users.– Reuters
