The company is in talks with investors to pull in 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) in fresh money. Ant Financial didn’t provide comment on the report, but MBA Capital was able to verify from a source close to the deal that the firm is raising, and at a valuation of between $50 billion to $60 billion as the Journal first reported. While that deal was undisclosed it came at a valuation of $45-$50 billion.
Ant Financial is best known for operating Alipay, China’s top online payments service that counts 500 million users and 200 million credit cards. The firm’s other businesses include Sesame credit-scoring, Yu’e Bao money market fund, a micro-loan program and Alibaba’s online bank: MYBank.
Ant Financial was controversially spun off from Alibaba in 2011, a move that drew heat from investor Yahoo but was purportedly done in response to Chinese regulations around payments. Alibaba’s record-breaking $25 billion IPO in 2014 didn’t include Ant Financial, which is expected to IPO in 2016.
The two entities are separate, but they share a number of executives and investors while Alibaba stands to profit from a public listing thanks to its shareholding. The two have also joined forces in the past, through investments in Hong Kong.
We at MBA Capital are proud to be involved at any level and we’re happy to place our shareholders in the drivers seat for what is expected to be an exciting ride.