Ma’s Ant plans dual IPOs at possible $200bn valuation
HONG KONG: Billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group is seeking a valuation north of $200 billion as it goes public in Hong Kong and Shanghai, people familiar with the matter said, kicking off a much-anticipated market debut for China’s leader in internet finance.
The parent of China’s largest mobile payment company will pursue a simultaneous dual-listing in Hong Kong and on the Shanghai stock exchange’s STAR board, the Hangzhou-based firm said, in what promises to be one of the largest debuts in years.
Ant is already more richly valued than most Wall Street firms and, if conditions are favourable, it could seek to raise more in its IPOs than Saudi Aramco’s record $29 billion haul, one of the people said, asking not to be identified talking about a private deal.
The crown jewel of the sprawling Alibaba empire, Ant has been accelerating its evolution into an online mall for everything from loans and travel services to food delivery, in a bid to claw back shoppers lost to Tencent Holdings Ltd.
Ant’s chief executive Simon Hu has said that he wants people to think of Alipay as more than just a niche provider of financial services and the payments gateway for the world’s biggest e-commerce platform.
Part of that is to grow Ant’s reach in Asia, where it has been working with digital payment providers in India and Thailand as well as peddling its expertise in wealth management and risk controls.
Ant picked China International Capital Corp, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley for its Hong Kong offering, which could raise about $10 billion, people familiar with the matter said.
The Alibaba affiliate is the latest major Chinese company to seek a listing closer to home as increased trade tensions make New York’s capital markets less desirable.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp raised $7.5 billion from a Shanghai share sale in July that ranks as the world’s biggest new stock offering this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Some Chinese internet firms including JD.com Inc and NetEase Inc have also added second listings in Hong Kong this year.
“Despite abundant capital, it is not sure how investors would view Ant Group since there are a lot of tech stocks in the market,” said Pamela Chung, a Hong Kong-based managing director at consultancy Tricor Group.
Dual listings, once the preferred route for China’s largest corporations from banks to oil and gas producers, have since fallen out of favor in part because of the complexities involved in orchestrating share sales across very different capital regimes.
Ant’s decision is a triumph for Shanghai’s fledgling STAR board, conceived with the ambition of becoming mainland China’s preferred listing destination for high-growth companies.
A dual listing also helps Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd, which is seeing a renaissance of tech listings after it relaxed rules in the wake of losing China’s biggest tech firms — including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, which owns a third of Ant — to New York.
While Ant has begun working with bankers on the Hong Kong debut, more advisers could be added at a later stage and details of the offering could change as deliberations are ongoing, the people said.
Ant, valued at $150 billion in its last funding round, generated $2 billion in profit in the fourth quarter, based on calculations made from Alibaba’s filing.