INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The e-payments behemoth aims to sell 1.67 billion shares each at HK$80 ($10.30) in Hong Kong.Chinese e-payments giant Ant Group said Monday
it plans to raise $34 billion in a joint Asian listing, making it the biggest IPO in history
The cash raised from the split float between Hong Kong and Shanghai would be far more than the $29 billion chalked up by Saudi Aramco in
December.The financial arm of Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba, Ant Group runs Alipay, the dominant online payment system in China, where
cash, cheques and credit cards have long been eclipsed by e-payment devices and apps.According to statements released by Ant Group, the
e-payments behemoth aims to sell 1.67 billion shares each at HK$80 ($10.30) in Hong Kong from Tuesday.A further 1.67 billion shares will be
sold in Shanghai at 68.80 yuan ($10.30).The total sale would therefore exceed $34 bn, and could be close to $40 bn if over-allotment options
are taken up.The securities will begin trading on November 5.Ant claims an annual transaction volume exceeding 118 trillion yuan, with more
than 700 million monthly active users.Its entry into Shanghai and Hong Kong comes after Beijing called on national flagships of the
technology sector to list on domestic stock exchanges, in a period of sharp economic and political rivalry with the US.Jack Ma, the
billionaire founder of Alibaba, noted the significance of such a large offering happening in two Chinese cities."This was the first time
such a big listing, the largest in human history, was priced outside New York City," he told the Bund Summit in Shanghai on Saturday, in
comments reported by Bloomberg."We wouldn't have dared to think about it five years, or even three years ago," added Ma, who stepped down as
Alibaba's executive chairman last year.(This story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is auto-generated from a
