Online payment giant Ant Group, a financial services provider to e-commerce platform Alibaba is aiming for a record return of at least $35 billion as it’s going public in the Hong Kong and Shanghai market.
Ant wants to use the proceeds from the sale of the shares to grow its business and fund more research and development projects.
The Saudi state oil group Saudi Aramco currently holds the record with $29.4 billion raised last December on the Riyadh stock exchange.
The online payment giant owns the Alipay service - the Chinese equivalent and much larger variant of PayPal - with Alibaba having a 33% stake in Ant Group. The two companies were founded by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma.
Ant has more than 700 million active monthly users on its Alipay system and an annual volume of 14.4 trillion euros in transactions in mainland China.
According to market analysts, the valuation of the entire company has now grown to around $250 billion, making it’s market value higher than most of the US’ biggest financial institutions.
With its IPO, Ant Group is responding to Beijing's call, which wants to see the country’s tech flagships listed on national stock exchanges, in a period of sharp economic and political rivalry with the United States.
The Brussels Times
