Jack Ma’s Ant Group may relaunch its public listing soon as China’s crackdown on tech companies may be softening. Financial regulators in the country are in early discussions to bring back the IPO, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Chinese authorities are also close to granting Ant Group a license that could pave the way for the company to revive its listing plans and be regulated more like a bank, according to the sources. They added that the China Securities Regulatory Commission has assembled a team to revisit the fintech giant’s share sale plans. However, there are no listing deadlines as yet.
China’s long-drawn tech crackdown has been hitting some of the country’s largest firms since 2020, when Jack Ma criticized China’s regulatory system. Victims of the harsh regulatory pressure include Meituan and Alibaba, which paid billions of dollars in antitrust fines.
However, some of these Chinese tech stocks have skyrocketed in the past few weeks amid hints that the country was easing its regulatory clampdown as its economy recovers from Covid-19 restrictions. A report that stated the government cybersecurity review on ride-hailing giant Didi was coming to a close also helped support the positive market sentiment for Chinese tech firms.
See also: Alibaba U-turns on Jack Ma’s prophecy
Editing by Deepti Sri and Arpit Nayak
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