Eric Jing, CEO of Ant Financial
Bobby Yip | Reuters
Chinese financial technology firm Ant Group has begun the process of a concurrent initial public offering in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Ant, a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba, said Monday it would list its shares on both the STAR of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, a Nasdaq-style technology board, and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Dual inclusion will help Ant “accelerate its goal to digitize China’s service industry,” the company said.
“Becoming a public company will improve transparency for our shareholders, including customers, business partners, employees, shareholders and regulators,” Ant CEO Eric Jing said in a statement. “Through our commitment to serve the underserved, we make it possible for all of society to share our growth.”
Ant Group, formerly known as Ant Financial, did not disclose how much it was trying to raise in dual IPOs or when it would go public. The firm is better known as the signature behind the Alipay app, which along with Tencent’s WeChat Pay has become a very popular alternative to cash in China.
It is the world’s largest “unicorn” company, with a reported valuation of $ 150 billion. The company’s list could mark one of the biggest IPOs of 2020, in the face of a difficult global economic environment caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Inclusion on the STAR list would mark a major victory for China, which seeks to attract local tech stars to the mainland Chinese market. Last week, China’s largest chipmaker SMIC debuted on the STAR market, seeing its shares more than triple on the first day of trading.
It also shows that Hong Kong can still be seen as an attractive option for companies, despite internal and geopolitical tensions over the introduction of a new national security law in the special autonomous region last month.
—CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.
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