A logo of Ant Group is pictured at the headquarters of the company, an affiliate of Alibaba, in Hangzhou October 29, 2020. — Reuters pic
Investors, both retail and institutional, are rushing to buy into Ant, which operates China’s biggest payments platform and other financial services, despite risks of greater scrutiny at home and abroad. The bookbuilding for the Hong Kong leg of the IPO of Ant, backed by e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, ran from Monday to Friday, while books for the Shanghai leg were open for one day yesterday.
Harrison Chan, a 25-year-old financial professional in Hong Kong, spent 40 per cent of his monthly income on applying for Ant shares, and is now wondering whether he will get any, given the large number of bids made. Hangzhou-based Ant decided to exercise a so-called greenshoe option to increase the share offer by 15 per cent and is now selling a total of 1.92 billion shares on the Nasdaq-style STAR Market, according to Ant’s filing with the Shanghai exchange.