IPOs: Ant Group leads high-profile offerings

A flurry of filings this week promises a busy fall for IPOs, said Luisa Beltran in Barron’s. The headliner is Jack Ma’s Ant Group, jewel of the Alibaba e-commerce empire. Ant disclosed profits of $3.1 billion in the first half of 2020—an impressive number that exceeded most observers’ expectations. Listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, it is “expected to be the biggest IPO ever.” Snowflake, a cloud-data warehouse, and Asana, a software provider, also filed paperwork to go public, joining a “rejuvenated IPO market” that will also include Palantir and Airbnb this fall.