Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — A restructuring plan for Ant Group, controlled by Jack Ma and approved by the Financial Stability Development Committee led by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, could be announced next week before the Chinese New Year. The announcement comes after Ant Group’s IPO was called off and Alibaba Group was subject to an anti-monopoly investigation by authorities.
On Feb. 3, Bloomberg reported that Ant Group agreed with financial regulators on a restructuring plan to reorganize all its businesses into a financial holding company. The restructuring plan will likely be officially released to the public next week before the Chinese New Year.
It is reported that one of the early plans previously proposed by Ant Group to regulators was to include only its financial businesses in a financial holding company.
Ant Group’s transformation into a financial holding company regulated by China’s central bank, subject to stricter capital constraints and regulatory rules, could curb revenue and profit growth as a result, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Sources familiar with the matter told the WSJ that Ant Group’s restructuring plan needs to be approved by the Financial Stability Development Committee, led by Vice Premier Liu He.
In addition, Alibaba Group’s earnings report released on Feb. 2 showed that Ant Group contributed $4.8 billion in profit to Alibaba Group after it was suspended from its IPO (initial public offering). Since Alibaba Group holds a 33% stake in Ant Group, it made a profit of about RMB 14.5 billion in the three months ended last September.
Alibaba’s Hong Kong shares pulled up late in the day on the news, closing the market with a 1 percent gain.
Ant Group has been trying to portray itself as an Internet technology company, with Alipay as its core, to build an ecosystem that includes payments, credit, wealth management, insurance and other diversified businesses. If fully transformed into a financial holding company, Ant Group will face strict regulations similar to those governing the banking industry, and its growth and profitability will be challenged.
In addition, the restructuring plan may help eliminate the possibility of regulatory arbitrage for Ant Group. Eswar Prasad, former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in China, told the Wall Street Journal that the new structure will make it more difficult for Ant Group to shuffle between subsidiaries and transfer risks to more loosely regulated divisions to cover up risks.
Prasad added that financial regulators previously feared that regulatory arbitrage allowed Ant Group to paint a picture of an overall strong financial position, masking the financial risks posed by the new business.
On Jan. 26, Chinese central bank governor Yi Gang was asked at the World Economic Forum whether another Chinese financial regulator had made a mistake in approving Ant Group’s initial public offering in the first place. Yi was momentarily stumped, then said it was a complex issue and that the company had to address monopoly and privacy issues before things could hopefully get back on track. “I think you just have to follow the normal legal process and will see the results.”
Earlier, Pan Gongsheng, deputy governor of China’s central bank, criticized Ant Group for “flouting” regulatory compliance requirements and “violating regulatory arbitrage.”
On Dec. 26 last year, China’s central bank, the CBRC, the SFC, the Foreign Exchange Bureau and other financial authorities jointly interviewed Ant Group about the main problems in its operations. Five rectification requirements were put forward to Ant Group: first, return to the origin of payments, improve the transparency of transactions and strictly prohibit unfair competition; second, license and operate personal credit business legally and compliantly in accordance with the law and protect the privacy of personal data; third, establish a financial holding company in accordance with the law, strictly implement regulatory requirements and ensure adequate capital and compliance with related transactions; fourth, improve corporate governance and strictly rectify irregular credit, Insurance, wealth management and other financial activities; v. Compliance with the law to carry out securities and fund business, strengthen the governance of securities-type institutions, and compliance with asset securitization business.
The outside world believes that the actual controller of Ant Group, Jack Ma, triggered the discontent of the authorities.
Ma spoke at the Bund Financial Summit in Shanghai on October 24 last year, where he directly attacked the financial industry in front of a group of financial industry bigwigs. He said that China’s banking industry continues the pawnshop mentality, which has harmed many entrepreneurs, and that “we must change the pawnshop mentality of finance and rely on the credit system.”
Ma also said that the Basel Accord is more like an old people’s club, “to do innovation without risk is to kill innovation, there is no innovation without risk in this world. Very often, controlling the risk to zero is the biggest risk.”
In addition, Ma said that there is no systemic risk in Chinese finance because there is no system. Not yet fully matured, the lack of a healthy financial system, the drought of drought death, flooding fishing death. “We want to build a healthy financial system, not worry about financial system risk.” And pointing out that China lacks something of a healthy financial system is not preventing collective financial systemic risk, which are two completely different elements. What China needs is policy experts, not paper experts.
According to the analysis, Chinese Communist Party President Xi Jinping kept emphasizing “to firmly guard the bottom line of not occurring systemic financial risks”, Ma’s comments are equivalent to hitting Xi Jinping in the face.
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