Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


China's Plan to Regulate Internet Lending is Behind Suspension of Ant's
Record IPO, Analysts Say

Joyce Huang

   China has suspended the record-breaking $35 billion stock exchange
   listing of Ant Group, a spinoff corporation of Chinese e-commerce
   conglomerate Alibaba, because regulators say changes in the financial
   tech regulatory environment may cause it to fail to meet listing
   requirements.

   As such, analysts said the company's current valuation target fails to
   reflect the country's anticipated tightening of regulations on internet
   micro-lending.

   Lu Suiqi, deputy chair of Peking University's department of finance,
   said that China's pending move on internet micro-lending will have a
   negative impact on Ant Group's future business model -- creating risk
   that he believes the Shanghai Stock Exchange was trying to flag after
   last week's frenzied bidding for the company's shares.

   "Once the new regulation [on internet micro-lending] is implemented,
   its profit model will no longer sustain, which will lead to the
   downward revision of its valuation. If Ant (Group) were to go public as
   planned, its share prices may soon experience a free fall as its
   valuation would likely drop," Lu told VOA on Wednesday.

   Rise of Ant

   Ant Group, formerly known as Ant Financial, began with the name Alipay
   in 2004 -- a third-party online payment tool for Alibaba's e-commerce
   transactions.

   As of June, its flagship Alipay remains China's largest digital payment
   platform, which serves more than one billion users and 80 million
   merchants with annual payment volume transactions reaching $17.6
   trillion.

.