The campus of the headquarters of Ant Group Co. in Hangzhou, China, on January 20th.
Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
According to new Bloomberg Intelligence estimates, Ant Group Co.’s valuation. it can be further reduced according to the new measures proposed by China to curb market concentration in its online payments market.
According to senior analyst Francis Chan, Jack Ma’s fintech giant could be worth less than 700 billion yuan ($ 108 billion) in the draft proposals, which could halve the value of Alipay’s service. Ant’s. Earlier this month, Chan reduced its ant valuation to less than 1 trillion yuan, from about 1.44 trillion yuan.
“Ant Group’s valuation may fall even further if its payment unit is forced to break due to the potential antitrust China’s central bank probes, “Chan wrote in a research note.
Ant’s revised estimate is a long way off valuations that reached $ 320 billion before the company was forced to undo its initial public offering in November. China’s crackdown forced Ma to withdraw its $ 35 billion IPO a few days before its planned listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
China’s central bank said Wednesday that any non-bank payment company with half the market share of online transactions or two entities with a combined two-thirds share could be subject to antitrust polls.
If the monopoly is confirmed, the central bank may suggest that the cabinet impose restrictive measures, including the separation of the entity by its type of business. Companies that already had payment licenses would have a one-year grace period to meet the new rules, the central bank said.
Alipay, with nearly 1 billion users, controls 55% of the mobile payments market. A breakout could cut its valuation by 600 billion yuan in half, Chan said, adding that it is questionable whether Ant can relaunch its IPO this year.
The Duopoly
Ant, Tencent, dominates the mobile payments market in China
Source: iResearch data for June. 30
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which has a stake in Ant, fell for the second day in Hong Kong and fell 2.9% at 9:57 a.m. he fell into his business, ending several months of speculation about his whereabouts.
Read more: Why China changed the rules of Jack Ma’s ant group: QuickTake
– With the assistance of David Scanlan, Lulu Yilun Chen and Jun Luo