Alibaba’s Ant Group files for dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai
Alibaba’s fintech arm Ant Group has filed for a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, in what could become the world’s largest ever IPO.
Ant’s float would be the first simultaneous listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style Star market, in a listing which could raise as much as $30bn.
Ant Group, which made around $2.6bn in net profit last year, is an affiliate company of Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group and is the world’s most valuable unicorn, with a valuation of $150bn according to a 2018 funding round.
With over a billion users of its Alipay service, Ant is pushing further into financial services offering robo investing and a lending platform on top of its role as a payments provider and digital wallet app.
The fintech firm did not disclose the size, timetable or other details of the offer in its prospectus.
Last month Ant Group released a statement saying a public listing would “help the company accelerate its goal of digitising the service industry in China and driving domestic demand.”
“The innovative measures implemented by SSE STAR market and the SEHK have opened the doors for global investors to access leading edge technology companies from the most dynamic economies in the world and for those companies to have greater access to the capital markets,” executive chairman Eric Jing said last month.
Alibaba raised $25bn when it is listed in New York in 2014 and returned with a $13bn secondary listing in Hong Kong last year.
Ahead of its Hong Kong debut, the company said the listing would allow Asian investors to “participate in Alibaba’s growth,” as it looks to tap “substantial new capital pools” in the region.
The e-commerce giant had originally considered a Hong Kong IPO in 2013, but chose New York after failing to secure regulatory approval.