Downloaded from: justpaste.it/6wnyv
With billions on the line, China halts Ant Group's IPO; Jack Ma summoned The move upends what had been one of China's biggest business success stories
It was heralded as China’s answer to JPMorgan -- a homegrown financial giant on the cusp of the biggest stock-market debut the world has ever seen. Instead, with billions on the line and an initial public offering all but sealed, Chinese authorities have abruptly thrown into doubt the future of Ant Group Co. and its celebrated founder, the billionaire Jack Ma. Only days before the financial-technology juggernaut was to go public in Shanghai and Hong Kong -- a coup for China’s financial markets that once would have been unimaginable -- the $35 billion
IPO was halted on Tuesday after Jack Ma, China’s richest man, was summoned by regulators. In an extraordinary turn of events, authorities announced that they had belatedly discovered an array of shortcomings that, by some accounts, might require the sprawling Ant to be overhauled. The move upends what had been one of China’s biggest business success stories, as well as what was to be a pivotal step in the development of the nation’s fast-growing capital markets. “It’s definitely surprising,” said Mike Bailey, director of research at FBB Capital Partners. “If there is something strange going on on the macro side for China’s financial markets or in the company, that would be worrisome.”