‘Started as Alipay in 2004, Ant Group has transformed from a digital payments company for Alibaba to an aggregator of financial services. Today, the group’s lending, wealth management, and insurance offerings count for 63% of its revenue. In the first half of this year, a further shift in revenue generation saw the credit business surpassing payments for the first time ever. […]
Ant’s prospectus, for its dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong, states that “we call ourselves Ant because we believe that small is beautiful, small is powerful”, but if the company can keep this pace up, it will be marching on to a valuation more closely resembling an army of unicorns as opposed to anything reminiscent of its name’ was how Fintech Collective newsletter captured this eponymous company.
Today, Alibaba’s affiliate fintech company, Ant Group (of Alipay), does generate more payment volume than Visa and Mastercard combined! Ant does $18 trillion while the American giants bring in $16 trillion. Ant was started in 2004 while Visa and Mastercard were respectively started in 1958 and 1966.
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When a company of such scale and size goes to the public market, expect records to be broken. And today, we are noting that Ant did break a record. Yes, it has beaten Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, as the world’s largest IPO.
In a record breaking move, Jack Ma’s Ant Group pulled off the biggest share sale in history, with a $34.1 billion Initial Public Offering (IPO), beating Saudi Aramco’s previous record of $29.4 billion.
The Ant Group has been in market news as it prepared to make its market debut. The regulatory filing released Monday showed the Chinese tech giant priced its dual listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Shanghai’s Star Market at 80 Hong Kong dollars ($10.32) and 68 yuan ($10.13) per share respectively.
The $34.1 billion IPO puts the company’s value at $310 billion. Ant’s decision to file its initial public offering with Shanghai and Hong Kong markets signals a looming boycott of US markets by Chinese firms. The Chinese government has recently been encouraging its companies to avoid US markets, following the economic and political tensions between the two countries that have put Chinese companies under serious scrutiny in America.
You will wish you have this “ant” in your portfolio because Ant’s ambition is to go global and challenge Visa and Mastercard in domains where it does not exist at the moment. Team China makes history – the world’s largest IPO, and this came via a private company, unlike Aramco, which is a state owned enterprise.
It is becoming China’s world; prepare for it.
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The big guys are calling numbers that can make small guys feel dizzy, and they are still eyeing bigger numbers. China is a country in name only, though it’s a continent in practical terms…
From the report, Ant is a conglomeration of investment bank, retail bank and payment platform, all rolled into one; there are many facets to its operation.
Going global may not be straightforward for Ant, because the global financial system doesn’t run through China, unlike the supply chain; both are viewed differently.
Aramco came with Oil money from Saudi, Ant came with payment system from China, who comes next from what sector, and which country? Time will tell.
In the meantime, it’s Ant’s party, tune up the volume please!