China's Ant Group Plans Mega IPO, 'The Largest In Human History,' Eyes $200Bn Valuation

Chinese fintech company Ant Group is preparing for a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong's STAR stock exchanges, and it will be the biggest in the world as per pricing determined Friday, Alibaba founder Jack Ma said.

During the Bund Summit in Shanghai on Saturday, Ma said, without giving away any details, “It is the first time that the pricing of such a big listing—the largest in human history—has been determined outside of New York City.” He added this would not be imaginable five or even three years ago. “But a miracle just occurred,” he said.

The IPO will be held in the coming weeks. This widely-anticipated IPO could value the fintech company at around $200 billion, reports suggested.

Ant Group is one of China’s biggest fintech firms backed by Ma’s e-commerce giant Alibaba. Sources told CNBC that the listing could be worth as much as $35 billion, exceeding Saudi Aramco’s listing worth $29.4 billion in December 2019, the biggest in the world yet. Aramco had taken the title from Alibaba’s listing in 2014, which was worth $21.8 billion.

Ant Group operates the Alipay mobile payments app in China, which had over a billion active users in mainland China in the year that ended June 30. It has seen transactions worth $17 trillion during the same time, with 711 million active monthly users. It is also an attractive platform for merchants to conduct their business.

Alibaba has a 33% stake in the company, making it the largest shareholder. Alipay is also the default payment option on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. Ant Group 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 2020.

The company is wary of the growing tensions between the U.S. and China, severely affecting Chinese companies. Ant Group has said the U.S. targeting Chinese software like WeChat and TikTok for sanctions, may negatively affect its business.