Jack Ma’s Ant Group files for IPO, says it made $3.2 billion in first-half profit
An employee scans a quick response (QR) code displayed on the Ant Group’s Alipay app. Ant Group is preparing for a dual initial public offering in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
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Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba, has given the first look at its financials ahead of its highly-anticipated initial public offering (IPO), in a document filed on Tuesday.
The financial technology powerhouse, which is still controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, reported profit of 21.9 billion Chinese yuan ($3.2 billion) on total revenues of 72.5 billion yuan in the first half of the year, according to the exchange filing.
Ant Group, formerly known as Ant Financial, is planning a concurrent listing on the Shanghai stock exchange’s STAR market — a Nasdaq-style tech board — and the Hong Kong stock exchange.
The company has not yet disclosed details about the pricing of its shares. But one analyst previously told CNBC that its market valuation could be north of $200 billion, making it larger than some of America’s biggest banks.
Ant Group runs the popular Alipay mobile payments app in China which has over 900 million users. But it offers financial products beyond that, including wealth management, loans to businesses and insurance.
But recently, Ant has pivoted to focus on what it calls technology services — financial technology products that it can sell to enterprise customers for a licensing fee.
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