Ant Group, Controlled By Jack Ma’s Alibaba, Planning Historic IPO On Hong Kong, Shanghai Exchanges

Ant Group, the Chinese fintech giant controlled by Jack Ma of Alibaba (BABA), has filed for dual initial public offerings on the Hong Kong and Shanghai’s STAR stock exchanges.

Ant Group is seeking to raise at least $20 billion in the IPOs – and potentially more than the $29 billion Saudi Aramco raised in its own massive IPO last December. The offerings are particularly expected to give a huge boost to Hong Kong’s stock exchange as the city-state has found itself in a political quagmire over the imposition of China’s controversial security law.

Ant Group said it posted a profit of 21.9 billion Chinese yuan ($3.2 billion) on total revenues of 72.5 billion yuan ($10.5 billion) in the first half of the year. In the first half of 2019, Ant Group recorded earnings of 1.9 billion yuan ($270 million) on revenues of 52.5 billion yuan ($7.6 billion).

The company, which runs the Alipay mobile payments app in China, could gain a market valuation of $200 billion, CNBC reported.

Alipay has more than 1 billion annual active users and processed 118 trillion yuan ($17 trillion) in transactions in mainland China in the year ended June 30. Alipay has 711 million monthly active users while more than 80 million merchants used Alipay to conduct business.

Currently an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, Ant Group benefits from its links to its parent – for example, it serves as the default payment option on Alibaba’s e-commerce and food delivery platforms.

Alibaba currently owns a 33% stake in Ant Group, making it the largest shareholder. Hangzhou Junao, an entity controlled by Ant Group and Alibaba executives, owns a 20.66% stake, while Hangzhou Junhan, which holds shares on behalf of Ant Group employees, owns a 29.86% stake.

Ant Group also provides wealth management services, insurance and loans to businesses.

But Ant Group has warned that rising tensions between China and the U.S. – particularly as President Donald Trump has targeted Chinese-owned software like WeChat and TikTok for sanctions -- may “negatively affect” its business.

Ant Group added that restrictions posed by the U.S. on Chinese companies “may materially and adversely affect our ability to acquire or use technologies, systems, devices or components that may be critical to our technology infrastructure, service offerings and business operations; to access U.S. cloud-based systems and other infrastructure; and to operate in the U.S.”

Ant Group added: “These policies and measures directed at China and Chinese companies could have the effect of discouraging U.S. persons to work for Chinese companies, which could hinder our ability to hire or retain qualified personnel to work for our business.”

Ant Group’s IPO also emerges as U.S. government officials make it harder for Chinese stocks to list on American exchanges, due to concerns over transparency and accounting irregularities. As such Ant Group chose not to list shares in the U.S.

Ant Group will focus on deepening its reach in Asian countries, including India and the Philippines.