Chinese President Xi Jinping personally made the decision to halt Ant Group’s initial public offering (IPO), once billed as the largest IPO in history, after the group’s controlling shareholder, Jack Ma, angered government leaders with remarks, the Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 12, citing a knowledgeable Chinese official.
The rebuke was the culmination of years of tension between Ma, China’s most famous entrepreneur, and authorities, the paper said, with Beijing uneasy about his influence and the rapid growth of the digital payments giant he controls.
Ma previously gave a nearly 20-minute speech at the second annual Bund Financial Summit in Shanghai on Oct. 24. In his speech, he raised questions about financial topics in China such as, “Basel is like an old people’s club,” and “(China’s problem) is not financial systemic risk, but the risk of lack of financial ecosystem,” Today banks continue the same pawn shop mentality” and “good innovation is not afraid of regulation, but afraid of yesterday’s way to regulate”, among other comments.
The Wall Street Journal reports that just days after Ma made the speech, Xi Jinping ordered Chinese regulators to investigate and effectively halt Ant Group’s IPO.Ant Group and China’s State Council Information Office did not or could not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
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