Ant Group, controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, filed a listing prospectus with China's Nasdaq-style sci-tech innovation board, also known as the STAR market, and concurrently filed an A1 Application Proof with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, a key step towards its A+H dual listing.
Wang Jiayue, a senior investment banker, said Ant Group is expected to receive an inquiry letter this week and reply next Monday. He said the company may apply for registration around September 14 and get listed around October 20.
According to the prospectus, Ant Group's revenue for the first half of 2020 was RMB 72.528 billion, with a net profit of RMB 21.92 billion.
Ant Group intends to issue at least 10% of its total issued share capital in A-shares and H-shares in total, with a total issued share capital of at least 30,038.97 million shares, which means at least 3 billion new shares will be issued.
The A-share issuance may introduce a greenshoe mechanism with an over-allotment option of up to 15%.
Jack Ma has a personal stake of up to 8.8 percent and has also announced that he will donate 610 million shares of Ant to charity, representing 2 percent of Ant's total issued share capital.
While the issue price per share and target valuation has yet to be determined, the market generally believes that Ant will likely record one of the world's largest IPOs in recent years.
When Ant Group raised its Series C round in 2018, it was already valued at $150 billion according to media reports.
Ant Group hired CICC, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley to handle the Hong Kong listing.
Ant will use the proceeds in three main directions: to support innovation and technology investment, to help upgrade the digital economy, and to strengthen global collaboration and support global sustainability.
Ant Group's annual revenue for 2019 was RMB 120.6 billion, with a net profit of RMB 18.07 billion; from January to June this year, Ant's revenue was RMB 72.5 billion, of which digital financial technology services accounted for over 60% of the revenue.
Ant Group said to go public as soon as Sept to become largest IPO in history
Ant Group's operating revenue was RMB 65.396 billion, RMB 85.722 billion, RMB 120.618 billion, and RMB 72.528 billion for FY2017, FY2018, FY2019, and January-June 2020 respectively. The net profit was RMB 6.95 billion, RMB 667 million, RMB 16.957 billion, and RMB 21.234 billion, respectively.
The IPO document also disclosed that Alipay App serves more than 1 billion users and more than 80 million merchants, with more than 2,000 financial institutions cooperating with it, making it the world's largest life service/business app.
