By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 12th, 2024
According to the regulatory filings, Ant Group shares are set to start trading in Hong Kong from November 5.
The world’s most valuable fintech company Ant Group Co Ltd is set to raise over $34.5 billion in its dual listing. Dubbed the biggest IPO of all time, Ant Group was given green light from China Securities Regulatory Commission for the Shanghai and Hong Kong listing last week, Wednesday.
According to the company, the shares are to be split between the two listings issuing 1.67 billion new shares in each location.
Notably, for the Shanghai listing, the shares are priced at 68.8 yuan hence raising approximately 114.94 billion yuan. On the other hand for the Hong Kong listing, the company has priced the shares at 80 Hong Kong dollars. Therefore expecting to raise up to 133.65 billion Hong Kong dollars. In total, Ant Group is anticipating to raise over $34.5 billion with the demand expected to be high in both listings.
Apparently, if the company sells all the set shares at the given price, its market valuation will surpass $313 billion. Hereby making it more valuable than global banks like Wells Fargo or even Goldman Sachs.
According to the regulatory filings, Ant Group shares are set to start trading in Hong Kong from November 5. However, Ant Group has not disclosed the date for the Shanghai shares.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA), a major financier of the fintech company behind Alipay, through its subsidiary Zhejiang Tmall Technology has agreed to buy 730 million Ant Group’s A-shares. As a result, Alibaba will have control of approximately 33% stake in Ant Group, thus making it the largest single shareholder.
Strategic investors have agreed to subscribe to 80% of the Ant Group shares. Retail investors need to finalize and pay for the shares they have bid for by Friday, according to Ant’s prospectus.
Ant Group before Its Dual Listing
Ant Group is aiming to be a leading fintech company in developing technology that will uplift the larger marginalized population hence gaining global popularity and in turn demand. One of its popular products is the Alipay, which is an e-wallet and a processing system that is widely used in China with over 100 million daily transactions and over 520 million active users.
With the Ant Group experience in developing a system that is not only widely accepted by the public but also in line with the Chinese regulations, the company is well-positioned to build bigger and better systems with such kind of capital.
Jack Ma, Alibaba co-founder, indicated that digital currencies are the future during his speech at the 2nd Bund Finance Summit organized by the China Financial Forty Forum in conjunction with various organizing committee member institutions.
Hereby hinting Ant Group might focus on developing infrastructure that provides a seamless payment system with part of the raised capital.