China has suspended the Ant Group Co’s $35 billion blockbuster Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the Shanghai leg after summoning its company executives, according to Bloomberg. The suspension comes after China’s regulators warned that Ant faces increased scrutiny and will be subject to the same restrictions on capital and leverage as banks.
- Ant’s IPO sparked a frenzy with individual investors already subscribed to $2.8 trillion of offering in Shanghai alone, while Institutional investors subscribed for over 76 billion shares, more than 284 times the IPO tranche.
- Ant has recently faced scrutiny in Chinese state media after Jack Ma criticized local and global regulators for stifling innovation and not paying sufficient attention to development and opportunities for the young.
- Analysts viewed Ant’s decision to list on the Star board, a market launched last year, as a major win for mainland exchanges.
Ant’s duo Shanghai and Hong Kong IPO was expected to debut on Thursday and would have been the world’s biggest public offering.
