Ant Group Seeks $225B Valuation Ahead Of Planned Dual Listing

Ant Group Seeks $225B Valuation Ahead Of Planned Dual Listing

As it aims for an approximately $225 billion valuation, Ant Group intends to seek dual listings in Shanghai and Hong Kong in the weeks to come, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources.

Sale of the stock could bring in roughly $30 billion overall in the event of positive market conditions, according to one of the unnamed sources in the report.

A dual listing of $30 billion would come out ahead of the $29.4 billion take of Saudi Aramco per Bloomberg data.

The company, which is headquartered in Hangzhou, aims to float its stock at the same time on Shanghai’s Star board and the Hong Kong stock exchange in October at the earliest, according to unnamed sources in the report.

Ant’s intentions are not set in stone, according to unnamed sources in the report. Bloomberg noted that an Ant spokesperson turned down a request to comment.

The news comes as Ant Group gained profits of $1.3 billion in the first fiscal year quarter, marking a rise of 560 percent over the same period one year ago.

The firm contributed $433.7 million in earnings for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which owns one-third of Ant.

The Q1 report occurred one year following Ant Group’s preliminary IPO filing with the Zhejiang Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Separately, Ant Group reportedly intends to form a new consumer finance firm that would let it cement its base in the digital lending space in China.

Alibaba Group Holding Co. reported results on Aug. 20 that suggested the firm benefited from the digital shift that the pandemic has sped up.

Alibaba Group Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang said in a press release at the time that the company was “well positioned to capture growth from the ongoing digital transformation.”

The company reported that annual active consumers on its China retail marketplaces reached 742 million in the quarter ending June 30 in comparison to 674 million for the same quarter in 2019.