Ma Yun withdraws from the actual controller, and Ant seeks to go public? Ants respond

“I heard that the whole floor of Ant cheered just now, which is the voice of wealth and freedom.” Before Ma Yun spoke at an event on the Bund in Shanghai to bombard the financial system in October 2020, the news of Ant Group’s upcoming listing was setting off a carnival on the Internet , This is a ridicule from netizens at the time. “Ant Group employees hold about 40% of the shares” was once on the hot search, and someone calculated an account. The average number of shares held by an Ant P7 employee is about 30,000 to 40,000 shares, which means that in the listing of Ant Later, his net worth will be around ten million yuan. However, after Ma Yun’s above-mentioned “historic speech”, on the evening of November 3, 2020, the listing of Ant Financial was urgently suspended. Since then, its listing plan has been shelved indefinitely, which has affected the fate of similar companies such as JD Digital . In the past two years or so, employees of large factories whose dreams of wealth and freedom have been shattered have experienced various unexpected changes such as business adjustments and personnel optimization, which have even affected housing prices in core cities such as Hangzhou, which is embarrassing.

After several rounds of interviews with the financial management department, in April 2021, Ant Group was required to correct unfair competition in the payment business, break information monopoly, apply for a financial holding company, strictly implement prudential regulatory requirements, and control the flow of fund products. Rectification was carried out in five major aspects of sexual risk. The adjustment of shareholder voting rights this time should be in response to the requirement of “strictly implementing prudential regulatory requirements”, and it is also a very core change. As far as listing is concerned, the change of the actual controller will certainly affect the listing process, because according to the relevant listing rules of major exchanges, the issuer needs to meet the rigid condition that the actual controller has not changed within the corresponding period of time when reporting (A-share main board requires Three years, two years for the A-share Science and Technology Innovation Board and ChiNext, and one year for Hong Kong stocks). But combined with the current rectification and reform, Ant Group has made key progress in sorting out financial and technology businesses, licensed financial business operations, corporate governance, payment and other businesses returning to their original roots. The next important step may be to apply for the establishment of a financial holding company The company is expected to at least complete the application for the establishment of a financial holding company before it will be its turn to restart the listing step.

In any case, the valuation of Ant after listing will shrink significantly. Beginning in 2021, including American mutual fund giants Fidelity Investments, BlackRock, and Price have all lowered the valuation of Ant Group. Pessimistic such as Fidelity Investment’s valuation of Ant Group in May 2022 dropped to 70 billion US dollars (about 478.7 billion yuan), 70% of the peak evaporated; optimistic such as BlackRock (participated in the C round of investment), In March 2022, the valuation of Ant Group was lowered to US$151 billion (about 1.03 trillion yuan). At present, the market recognizes the valuation judgment of the former more.

The listing of Ant is of course highly anticipated, but in comparison, what deserves more attention may be whether Jack Ma, who has been overseas for the past two years, will return to China in 2023. December 30, 2022 is also the Laba Festival. Jack Ma participated in the video meeting of Chinese rural teachers, saying that children are the most precious wealth of the country. It is indeed not easy in 2022. Teachers must not only protect the health of children but also teach them. , it is not easy for everyone. If teachers encounter any difficulties, they can contact the Jack Ma Foundation. Since the Laba Festival in 2015, the Jack Ma Foundation has been practicing a tradition of looking for 100 outstanding front-line rural teachers and holding the “Rural Teacher Award Ceremony”. Although Ma Yun’s number of public appearances has decreased sharply in recent years, every year during the Laba Festival he attends the awards ceremony offline or online on time to pay tribute to rural teachers. In this recent event, Ma Yun said to the 100 rural teachers on the other side of the screen: “I hope to meet you offline as soon as possible!” This move rarely reveals the willingness to return to China, which arouses people’s imagination.

What is certain is that, as one of the most representative private entrepreneurs in China since the 1990s, if Ma Yun returns to China in 2023, it will greatly boost the confidence of private enterprises and entrepreneurs. And this may be more meaningful than shouting slogans.

It is a change in voting rights, not a change in equity. The core of the adjustment is mainly the change of shareholder voting rights, from the joint exercise of share voting rights by Ma Yun and his concerted parties to the independent exercise of share voting rights by 10 natural persons including Ant Group’s management, employee representatives and founder Jack Ma.

The announcement pointed out that after this adjustment, “there is no longer any direct or indirect shareholder single or joint control of Ant Group.” This means that Jack Ma will no longer be the actual controller of Ant Group. The announcement shows that Jack Ma indirectly controls 53.46% of Ant Financial’s shares, making him the actual controller of the company. According to the statement, after the adjustment, Jack Ma will only own 6.208% of the voting rights of the shares, which will make the “governance structure more stable and conducive to the long-term sustainable development of the company.” Ant Group also emphasized that its shareholders and shareholding ratio have not changed, the economic interests of shareholders and beneficiaries will not be affected, and the voting rights of shares are more transparent and dispersed.

The Ant Group’s statement revealed the company’s previous complex holding structure, showing that its founder Jack Ma “indirectly” controlled 53.46% of Ant Group’s shares, that is, voting rights. It is worth pointing out that although voting rights are very important, equity can ultimately determine voting rights. Therefore, the next step may be further sorting out at the legal and logical levels.

Rectification may come to an end. Jack Ma’s relinquishment of actual control of Ant Group may mark the end of a turbulent period for the Chinese fintech giant, thus becoming a watershed moment for Ant Group’s “rectification and business upgrade”. Another more positive signal is that Ant Consumer Finance’s 10.5 billion yuan capital increase plan has received regulatory approval, which is a major development. It needs to be pointed out that the relaunch of Ant Group’s IPO may no longer be a major event. For example, restrictions such as the listing time after the actual controller is changed can be expected.

A profound lesson. As the founder of Alibaba and a billionaire, Ma Yun was once on par with Amazon’s Bezos, Tesla’s Musk and Microsoft’s Gates and other American technology legends. Undoubtedly both business-minded and ambitious, Jack Ma built one of China’s largest business empires from scratch, created a fortune and brought digital innovation to hundreds of millions of people.

But he stumbled and ignored important constraints and warnings: “A gentleman cannot think about his position” and “A gentleman is slow in words but quick in action.” According to people who know Jack Ma, he has not kept up with the changes of the outside world and the times, and has not realized the risks of “offside”. He ignored warnings for years, they said. With the outbreak of the “Waterloo” incident, the high-profile Jack Ma cameo as an “opinion leader”. For example, in October 2020, Jack Ma gave a speech at the Shanghai Bund Financial Forum and publicly discussed China’s financial supervision, which caused criticism and shock. This is Ma Yun’s desperate move on the role of entrepreneur and “Internet celebrity”.

Extraordinary capital market event. November 2020. Ant Financial’s $37 billion IPO, the largest public offering in history, was called off at the last minute by the Shanghai Stock Exchange just two days before the official launch, which also led to the financial technology giant’s subsequent was asked to restructure. It needs to be pointed out that, according to the official statement, the IPO of Ant Financial is only temporarily suspended, not the cancellation of the listing, and it does not mean that it will not be listed permanently.

Huge fines. In 2021, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation made a decision to punish Alibaba in accordance with the “Anti-Monopoly Law”, imposing a fine of 4% of its domestic sales in China in 2019 of 455.712 billion yuan, totaling 18.228 billion yuan, saying that it has 18.228 billion yuan in online sales in China. Monopolistic behavior.

This series of adjustments of Ant Group is a microcosm of the continuous optimization of corporate governance and the adjustment of organizational structure of leading domestic companies in recent years. On the one hand, Jack Ma’s withdrawal from the actual controller and his recent resignation of various “titles” have a certain degree of coherence; enhanced.