This is a good opportunity for investors to get some money back as Ant’s profit growth has slowed down significantly, Francis Chan, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, said. Minority overseas shareholders might take this opportunity to reduce their stakes, he said.
Silver Lake Management, Warburg Pincus and Carlyle Group were among the biggest US backers in that funding round. Others that put money in included Singapore’s GIC, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Temasek Holdings.
Ant said it will transfer repurchased stock into the company’s staff incentive plan to attract talent.
The individual limited partners of two entities that form most Ant’s shareholders – mostly comprised of Ant executives – have voluntarily decided not sell shares back to Ant out of the long-term commitment to the company, according to the statement.
The limited partners also committed to retaining the two dividends in 2022 with Hangzhou Junhan and Hangzhou Junao to enhance the operation’s capital strength.
Financial regulators led by the central bank fined Ant and its affiliates a total of 7.12 billion yuan on Friday, ending two years of inquiries into the company. Tencent was levied a 2.99 billion yuan fine.
Tencent and Ant affiliate Alibaba Group Holding soared in New York trading. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
A meaningful relaxation of curbs on Ant – one of the most high-profile casualties of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s sweeping clampdown on the country’s tech giants – would send a strong signal that policymakers are following through on recent pledges to support the industry.
With the regulatory clampdowns out of the way, Ant can spend more time building its business and even revive its IPO.
Ant said in January it had no plans for an IPO at that time. Still, the company’s chairman, Eric Jing Xiandong, said in 2021 that Ant would eventually go public.
Ant co-founder Ma, meanwhile, returned to China in early March after a prolonged period of travelling overseas. The government persuaded him to go back to the mainland as a means to showcase authorities’ support for private entrepreneurs, Bloomberg News had reported.
The move follows Ma’s decision to cede control of Ant in January, holding about 6.2 per cent voting rights after the change.
Following that, the Communist Party chief of Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, praised Ant for abiding by the party’s leadership, and required local government departments to solve problems raised by the
More than two years ago, Chinese regulators abruptly halted Ant’s IPO, sending shock waves across global capital markets. New rules have been slapped on the fintech giant, which has operations ranging from consumer lending and wealth management to online payments.
The central bank ordered Ant to fold all financial units into a holding company. It also told the firm to open up its payments app to competitors and sever improper linking of payments with other products including its lending services.
