Eyes turned to Jack Ma, Alibaba founder and the largest stakeholder in Ant Group, after the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced it would postpone the group’s mega-IPO. Credit: Greg Beadle/World Economic Forum, Creative Commons
The Chinese fintech conglomerate Ant Group, known for its digital payments and other online financial services, has just been stopped in its tracks, after Chinese regulators suspended its simultaneous public listing, originally scheduled for November 5, on the Hong Kong and Shanghai Stock Exchanges. The suspension is possibly in response to a recent speech by Jack Ma, Ant’s controlling shareholder, who was critical of financial regulations that he believes show insufficient understanding and support for fintech innovation.
The Ant IPO was to be the largest in history, surpassing that of Saudi Aramco ($25.6 billion when first listed last December), and Ant’s first cousin, Alibaba ($25 billion on its New York Stock Exchange debut in 2014). Based on Ant Group’s IPO prospectus, the company aims to raise $34.4 billion (for about 11 percent of its shares). With a total market valuation projected at $313.4 billion, Ant would be the third-largest Chinese-listed company
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo met with Wang Wentao, the Chinese Commerce Minister, in Washington. It marked the first cabinet-level meeting in Washington between the U.S. and China during the Biden administration, and it was a signal of the Commerce Department’s increasingly central role in the current U.S.-China relationship. Usually, the Commerce Department is far from the center of anything, but as Katrina Northrop reports, the department is uniquely suited to address the China challenge.
The lawyer and author talks about the attack on a train in the 1920s which created an international incident, the rise of the Communist Party and the conditions for foreign media in China today.
