This emerged from a message from Ant Group on Saturday. The move comes as Chinese regulators tightened the fintech giant’s planned IPO two years ago, reining in the tech industry that has since thrived.
The departure of apparently discredited founder Ma could rekindle plans for an IPO for Ant Group. But Chinese stock markets require a two to three-year waiting period after such corporate governance changes. Hong Kong has only one year.
Ant Group is behind Alipay, the Chinese mobile payment system with over one billion users. The IPO planned for 2020 would be the world’s largest at $35 billion and failed at the last minute due to regulatory authorities.
Since then, the 58-year-old multi-billionaire has largely disappeared from the public eye, according to media reports, where he lived longer in Japan last year and was coincidentally spotted in Thailand last week.
(SDA)