China’s Ant Financial Services Group is currently in another round of fundraising and is seeking to raise at least $8 billion. With this anticipated investment led by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings, the financial group is anticipating a valuation of around $150 billion ahead of an expected “stock market flotation,” according to the South China Morning Post.
With Ant Financial’s announcement of going public with an IPO earlier this year, it makes sense why they are attempting to increase their funding. It is a fairly common practice for sought-after Chinese companies to increase their valuations and broaden their investor base before going public in the stock market. After this anticipated funding round, the company will remarkably near $150 billion in its valuation, making Ant Financial one of biggest public flotations in history, which is remarkable considering it would trump Spotify, Dropbox, and even Facebook’s numbers.
With their recent success and overall growth as a company, Ant Financial is receiving a lot of attention from major companies such as Alibaba. According to Reuters, Alibaba reiterated this past February that they are planning to take a 33% stake in Ant, “replacing the previous system where it received 37.5 percent of Ant’s pre-tax profit, in what was viewed as an important step ahead of any IPO.”
Jay Ritter, an IPO expert, and professor at the University of Florida made the following comment on Ant’s increase in valuation:
“Part of the increase in valuation might be because the new investors have received extra features… But part of the increase is because the company is continuing to live up to expectations, and is becoming an even more important player in China’s mobile payment space.”
With an estimated valuation of $150 billion, Ant Financial is making strides to become one of the leading forces in the financial market with the help of its wealthy investors.
