Ant Group grants first dividends to shareholders but Jack Ma chooses not to cash out
- Ant’s dividends paid to Alibaba, which owns 33 per cent of the unicorn, amounted to 3.9 billion yuan (US$622 million), according to data provided by Alibaba
- The fintech giant’s two other major shareholders – Hangzhou Junao and Hangzhou Junhan – have chosen to retain the dividends without cashing out
Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, has granted billions of yuan in cash dividends to its shareholders for the first time since it brought in investors in 2015, according to Alibaba’s latest quarterly financial report.
Ant’s dividends paid to Alibaba, which owns 33 per cent of the unicorn, amounted to 3.9 billion yuan (US$622 million), according to the earnings results of Alibaba, parent company of the South China Morning Post, published on Thursday.
That means total dividends dispersed by Ant, which is undergoing a government-led restructure to comply with regulatory demands, added up to around 12 billion yuan.
An Ant representative said the dividends were granted after considerations such as “the company’s financial, operational and development needs”. Its two other major shareholders – Hangzhou Junao and Hangzhou Junhan – have chosen to retain the dividends without cashing out.
According to Ant’s prospectus filed in 2020, Hangzhou Junao and Hangzhou Junhan, owned by Alibaba founder Jack Ma and a group of Alibaba executives, collectively controlled more than half of Ant.