In one single day, Ant Group Co's $35 billion share sale in Shanghai and Hong Kong was suspended even as Ma was called in on Monday for "supervisory interviews" and given a dressing down. But it didn't stop there
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Shares of Alibaba, which owns part of Ant, fell more than 8%, wiping off $68 billion off Alibaba's market value and shaving $3billion off Jack Ma's net worth.
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Ma had nearly a fortnight ago criticised Chinese regulators, claiming that China's biggest risk is that it 'lacks a financial ecosystem' and that the country's banks are like pawn shops where collaterals and guarantees are hard currency. "We shouldn't use the way to manage a train station to regulate an airport. We cannot regulate the future with yesterday's means," he had said.
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After Ma's remarks went viral, Chinese regulators halted what would have been the world's largest share offering in history. The fintech company's IPO would have given it a market value of about $315 billion based on filings -- bigger than JPMorgan Chase & C and four times larger than Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
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The Shanghai Stock Exchange said in a late night statement that it had postponed the Ant Group IPO because of "major issues" that might cause the company "not to meet the listing conditions or disclosure requirements."
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