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Ant Group, the fintech arm of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, plans a Hong Kong float as soon as this year. Although valued at about $150b in its last funding round in 2018, small trades in the secondary market late last year gave it an implied valuation of $200b.
The world’s most valuable tech “unicorn” had been looking to sell shares in Hong Kong and mainland China simultaneously, but is now leaning heavily towards the Asian financial hub first because it would probably face a smoother listing process, the sources and a third person with knowledge of the matter said. It is looking at selling between 5% and 10% of its shares in an initial public offering, said one of the sources, in what would be one of the world’s biggest listings this year.
