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Ant Group
BusinessBanking & Finance

Ant Group’s IPO ‘hiccup’ and tech sell-off brushed off by investors amid rush to tap into China’s rebounding economy

  • Thwarted Ant investors are looking to redeploy their funds into China, sources say
  • Hong Kong and Shanghai to thrive as financial hubs, says IPO panel

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The collapse of Ant Group’s initial public offering has not dampened the enthusiasm of overseas investors seeking to tap China’s growth. Photo: Reuters
Chad Bray,Daniel RenandAlison Tudor-Ackroyd
The collapse of the world’s largest ever initial public offering by China’s Ant Group is already in the rear-view mirror for investors keen to tap into China, the only major economy on track to grow this year.
Benchmark indices rose in Hong Kong and Shanghai even as financial professionals digested news that regulators had blocked Ant’s nearly US$40 billion IPO on November 3 amid a broader crackdown on technology giants and the super-apps they operate.

Senior deal advisers continued to predict fast-growing mainland Chinese companies will flock to Hong Kong and Shanghai to make their public debuts while investors are still earmarking larger and larger dollops of capital to deploy in China as it opens its gates to foreign investors.

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“What you’ll see is a gradual trend and shift towards listing in Hong Kong or Shanghai. It’s not going to change because of one hiccup,” said Govert Heijboer, co-chief investment officer at Hong Kong-based hedge fund True Partner Capital.

03:04

What is Jack Ma’s Ant Group and how does it make money?

What is Jack Ma’s Ant Group and how does it make money?
Several large institutional investors had prepared orders worth over a billion US dollars to participate in Ant’s IPO, according to people familiar with the matter, meaning they had missed out on putting the capital to work elsewhere while the listing process was in motion.
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However, when Ant and its advisers contacted some of them about the delay, several who were taking part in the Shanghai tranche of the IPO had said that they still wanted to buy yuan-denominated assets and had asked if there were Ant shares they could buy in private markets.

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