Jack Ma's Ant Group: World's biggest market debut suspended

The stock market debut by Chinese tech giant Ant Group has been abruptly halted.

Ant, backed by Jack Ma, billionaire founder of e-commerce platform Alibaba, was set to sell shares worth about $34.4bn (£26.5bn) on Thursday.

The listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong would have been the biggest stock market debut to date.

But Chinese authorities have cited "major issues" as the reason behind the eleventh hour suspension.

Ant runs Alipay, the main online payment system in China, where cash, cheques and credit cards have long been eclipsed by e-payment devices and apps.

Alipay says the total volume of payments on its platforms in China for the year ending in June was $17.6tn.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange said in a statement that Ma had been called in for "supervisory interviews".

A change to the regulatory environment meant Ant no longer met "listing conditions or information disclosure requirements".

The Hong Kong exchange then reported that Ant had decided to suspend its planned listing.

The share price was set on Monday amid reports of very strong demand from major investors.

Ant was due to sell about 11% of its shares. But the pricing valued the whole business at about $313bn.

The previous largest debut was Saudi Aramco's $29.4bn float last December.

Alibaba said it would be "proactive in supporting Ant Group to adapt to and embrace the evolving regulatory framework".

"We have full confidence in Ant Group colleagues' ability to do a good job. Society has high expectations for Alibaba.

"We will continue to work hard to not only meet but exceed expectations and fulfil our responsibility to society," the Chinese tech giant said.

Shares of Alibaba plunged 9.6% on Wednesday as investors reacted to the share listing suspension.

(Source: BBC)