Chinese regulators are wrapping up a two-year crackdown on the country’s once freewheeling technology giants after slapping more than US$1 billion of fines on Ant and Tencent Holdings on Friday. Ant has completed its overhaul ordered by Beijing, pinching profitability and sapping growth at a sprawling platform that spanned lending and insurance to asset management.
Jack Ma-backed Ant Group is proposing to buy back as much as 7.6% of shares in an effort to retain talent and offer an exit for investors ensnared by a years-long regulatory crackdown at the company.
Ant’s planned repurchase of the equity would value the company at about 567.1 billion yuan (US$78.5 billion), it said in a statement on Saturday. That is almost 70% lower than the US$280 billion market capitalization it fetched in 2020 for the scrapped initial public offering.
