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Miguel Cordon · · 1 min readAnt dispels rumors saying gov’t official under probe bought shares during its IPO
“Ant Group, the financial arm of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, on August 22 refuted online rumors that a senior Hangzhou government official currently under disciplinary investigation had bought shares in the company during its IPO,” Pandaily reported.
Details:
- On August 21, reports surfaced alleging that the secretary of the Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee, Zhou Jiangyong, committed legal violations. A now deleted article alleged that Zhou’s family had apparently bought stocks in Ant Group prior to its IPO.
- The fintech giant in a statement on its official WeChat account said that it “strictly followed” regulations and laws during its IPO process. Ant also stated it never cooperated with the law firms or lawyers it was rumored to be working with.
Dive deeper:
- In April this year, it was reported that Chinese regulators and agencies were probing the swiftness of the approval of the Ant IPO. The listing was earlier suspended less than 48 hours before it was slated to go live due to the company failing to meet listing qualifications.
- Amid the ongoing regulatory crackdown on Chinese tech giants, Ant’s profits fell to US$2.1 billion in the quarter ended March this year, a 37% decline from the previous quarter.
Editing by Collin Furtado and Jaclyn Tiu
(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency. More information here.)
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