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.To get more
latest ant group news, you can visit shine news official website.
The listings 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, which has eclipsed cash, cheques and credit cards.
Alibaba, which owns a third of Ant, saw it share price plunge 9.6% in Hong Kong trading on Wednesday.
This followed a 8.1% fall in New York on Tuesday after the suspension was announced.
Alibaba is listed in both the US and Hong Kong, and had previously broken the record for biggest stock market debut in 2014.
This share price drops wiped nearly $76bn off its value, more than
double the amount Ant was planning to raise.The Shanghai Stock Exchange
said in a statement that Mr 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.
Ant was due to sell about 11% of its shares across the two stock
exchanges. But the pricing valued the whole business at about $313bn.
The previous largest debut was Saudi Aramco's $29.4bn float last
December.What was meant to be the world's biggest initial public
offering has now been squashed by Chinese regulators.
In his prospectus letter, Ant's executive chairman, Eric Jing, had
waxed lyrical about how the company is revolutionising the future of
money.
Perhaps what he and Jack Ma - the billionaire founder of Alibaba and
the largest controlling shareholder in Ant - didn't factor in is how
ultimately, no matter revolutionary your business is, if it's operating
in China, it still needs the blessing of Chinese regulators.
The firm's executives and Mr Ma were called in by Chinese
authorities ostensibly for a discussion on regulating the sprawling
fintech firm.
But media reports indicate the meeting may have also been an
opportunity to address comments Mr Ma made at a fintech conference last
month.
Mr Ma compared traditional banks to "pawn shops", lauding the merits
of the digital banking system instead.Ant collects vast amounts of data
from its customers - data that the Chinese government doesn't have
immediate access to, unless it asks for it.
China is extremely supportive of Chinese companies. It's a criticism levelled at it by other countries.
But in return, Beijing also expects a degree of control over Chinese
companies that you wouldn't normally see in other countries.
Jack Ma's digital empire is increasingly veering outside that circle
of control. Suspending this listing may serve as reminder of who really
calls the shots.
The Wall