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Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has agreed to subscribe to more than a fifth of The impending initial public offering of Ant Group, underpinning the debut of its $ 35 billion partially owned fintech giant
Asia’s largest corporation to buy 730 million of approximately 1.67 billion Shanghai-listed A shares as part of a placement for strategic investors, e-commerce giant VOLUNTARY AD “class =” terminal-news-story “target = “_ blank”>he said in a stock exchange presentation. Including the Hong Kong leg of its IPO, Ant intends to sell a total of 3.3 billion shares. In addition, the financial services giant plans to issue around 1.16 billion Hong Kong-listed H shares to Alibaba, part of a distribution of around 3.26 billion shares to existing backers.
Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma’s Ant Group is racing towards what could be the world’s biggest launch party, scheduled for the next few weeks. The IPO stock deal helps Alibaba avoid dilution of its stake after Ant goes public. The Chinese e-commerce giant will hold about 32% of its affiliates’ shares after the IPO, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Ant’s IPO is said to have attracted the interest of strategic investors, including the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte, Temasek Holdings Pte and the National Council for China’s $ 318 billion Social Security Fund. That strong demand means the The Alipay operator could fetch a valuation of at least $ 280 billion, despite concerns that people within the Trump administration are exploring restrictions on the Chinese fintech giant, according to people familiar with the matter. Ant reported a 74% increase in gross profit to 69.5 billion yuan ($ 10.4 billion) from January to September, according to an A-share prospectus published on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Read more: Jack Ma’s Ant Group Raises IPO Valuation Target to $ 280 Billion
– With the help of Vlad Savov and Lulu Yilun Chen
(Updates with details about the bets in the third paragraph. Corrected an earlier version of the story to reflect Temasek’s full name.)
