Jack Ma’s Ant Group gears up for $200bn blockbuster IPO, amid US anti-China sentiment

The Financial Times calls it a blockbuster IPO. Billionaire Jack Ma's financial-tech giant Ant Group is preparing to list in Shanghai and Hong Kong and is targeting a market valuation above $200 billion. In this piece, the Wall Street Journal takes us inside this potential record-breaking IPO, which if achieved, "would propel Ant into the ranks of China's most valuable listed companies and the world's top financial-technology companies, in the vicinity of PayPal and Mastercard". The company however noted that increasing US-China tensions could impact cross-border payments business, but the coming listing would be a win for China's nascent STAR Market, a tech-focused Nasdaq-like bourse for start-ups, which according to The Economist, is benefiting from Sino-American tensions. – Lindiwe Molekoa 

Inside Ant Group's giant valuation: One billion Alipay users and big profit margins

By Stella Yifan Xie and Jing Yang

HONG KONG—Ant Group Co., the Chinese financial-technology giant controlled by billionaire Jack Ma, revealed how highly profitable its business has been as it gears up for what is likely to be a record-breaking initial public offering.

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