Join me live at hub.tekedia.com as I webcast what to expect at Tekedia Mini-MBA which begins on Monday.

• Time:   4.30-4.50pm WAT

• Date:  Feb 5

• Venue: Tekedia Hub

• Link: hub.tekedia.com

Ant Group Co. and Chinese regulators have agreed on a restructuring plan that will turn Jack Ma’s fintech giant into a financial holding company, making it subject to capital requirements similar to those for banks, Bloomberg reported.

The plan calls for putting all of Ant’s businesses into the holding company, including its technology offerings in areas such as blockchain and food delivery, people familiar with the matter said. One of Ant’s early proposals to regulators had envisioned putting only financial operations into the new structure.

An official announcement on the overhaul could come before the start of China’s Lunar New Year holiday next week, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which owns about a third of Ant, erased losses in Hong Kong trading on Wednesday after Bloomberg reported the agreement. Alibaba rose 3.5% in New York.

Some market participants had been speculating Ant might be forced to spin off portions of its business, which now looks unlikely, said Shujin Chen, Hong Kong-based head of China financial research at Jefferies Financial Group Inc.

Ant’s restructuring plan marks the first big step in what’s expected to be a lengthy overhaul process, as regulators draw up detailed capital requirements and other guidelines for companies that span multiple financial business lines.

China only introduced its framework for financial holding companies in September and many of the specifics are still being ironed out. While the rules will eventually provide more regulatory clarity for Ant, they’ll almost certainly force the company to slow the torrid pace of expansion that has made it China’s dominant fintech player and one of the world’s most valuable startups.

Ant is still exploring possibilities to revive its initial public offering, which was abruptly halted by regulators in November, one person familiar with the matter said. But given the financial holding company framework is so new, it’s unclear how long it might take for authorities to sign off on a listing.

Francis Chan, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst in Hong Kong said in December that Ant’s valuation could plunge below $153 billion as a result of the changes it will undergo as a holding company. The company was above $300 billion in November, before its IPO was halted.

As part of the overhaul plans, Ant and at least a dozen banks are paring back their years-long cooperation on consumer lending platforms that fuel the spending of at least 500 million people in China.

Ant declined to comment. The People’s Bank of China, which oversees financial holding companies, didn’t immediately respond to a faxed request for comment by Bloomberg.

Ant’s restructuring is part of a broader government campaign to increase supervision of the financial and technology sectors. Regulators have in recent months targeted everything from health-care crowdfunding to consumer lending. In January, they proposed measures to curb market concentration in online payments, where Ant and Tencent Holdings Ltd. are the biggest players.

Ant made the move to restructure into a holding company as a way to calm nerves in the faceoff between the company and Chinese authorities. Under the financial holding company structure, Ant’s businesses would likely be subject to more capital restrictions, potentially limiting its ability to lend more and expand at the pace of the last few years.

The agreement means that China has succeeded in its attempt to control the online financial sector. With Ant going holdco to ensure cooperation with the Chinese regulatory authorities, more moves are expected from the government in the near future to curb other sectors of its economy with unauthorized measures of freedom.

The news of a possible solution has softened the faces of wary investors who were caught in the Chinese power play. However, it is not clear what this will mean for Ant’s valuation and IPO. Chan estimates now that the valuation could drop below $108 billion.

This is one of our new courses in Tekedia Institute. In a time when most regions in the world are under severe physical security paralyses, I do think it makes sense for business leaders and professionals to pause and understand the physical risk elements, and how to manage them.

Yes,  we have the computer risk (cybersecurity). We have the finance one (accounting, auditing, etc). But most times, business schools leave the human ones. We think that is a big miss. If thugs can attack American senators which if not that it was in America, CNN would have reported the meltdown as a “coup”.

In Nigeria today, even the soldiers have dropped their cars, preferring trains between Abuja and Kaduna route. Simply, physical security has assumed a bigger dimension and we need to understand the nexus from experts!

In Week 12 of our program,  Henry Mgbemena, Global Security Adviser of World Vision International, will teach a course on Physical Security Risk Management. When insecurity has been scaled in the land, what are the strategic options and what should you do?

Register here as we start on Monday, Feb 8.

In the last edition of Tekedia Institute Mini-MBA, our site crashed on Day 1 as members surged to begin our academic festival. Our technical team has promised me that it would not happen again. We have this scaling thing which is supposed to organically adjust for traffic. Good People, at 12 noon on Monday Lagos time, go to the Board and let us begin an excursion into knowledge.

I hold 7 degrees across disciplines including doctorate in banking & finance, and engineering – and I understand many things. Unlike in the past where we had focused mainly on companies, in this edition, we have added courses on the PERSON. Yes, if the person is great, companies will become great. That is why the Human Productivity Innovation course is there. Yes, if we teach innovation, we must also be innovative as a business school.

Get ready – let us learn, APPLY, and advance our missions. I am so excited because we have something really amazing.

At 12 noon, be here – school.tekedia.com

To win in the 21st century digital business, you must invest to control and influence demand. What are your plans to do just that? Facebook can open any digital business it wants in the world because it has demand ( billions of citizens within its Facebook planet). 

If you do not understand that fundamental construct, you will struggle on your scaling playbook. No idea is really new and the web has removed information asymmetry to a large extent, making it possible for users to discover products and services. So, the playbook changes from who supplies the product to who can I discover easily. 

As Facebook moves into the Nigerian ecommerce, with the demand it has, expect new vistas of growth for the social media empire.

Again, what is your strategy to control and influence demand in your digital venture? I have a video.

In the digital age, what matters is not who controls supply, but who controls demand. Supply is largely infinite as there are many ways to get to the web, and because it is infinite, users congregate to platforms to help them navigate and make sense of the web.

In 1980, before the digital age as we have it today, the most powerful people in media were newspaper publishers. They were the people you needed to reach to get your message to the world. They decided what everyone read on the dailies and they were powerful. They controlled supply and by controlling supply, they shaped everything including advertising.