Jack Ma to give up control of the ant group

CNN
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Chinese billionaire Jack Ma You will no longer be in control Ant group After the fintech giant’s shareholders agreed to reshape its shareholding structure, according to a statement from the company on Saturday.

After the adjustment, Ma’s voting rights will drop to 6.2%, according to the statement and CNN calculations.

Before the restructuring, Ma owned more than 50% of the voting rights in Ant through Hangzhou Yunbo and two other entities, according to an IPO prospectus filed with the exchanges in 2020.

Ant added in the statement that the amendment to voting rights, a move to make the company’s shareholder structure “more transparent and diversified,” will not result in any change in the economic interests of any shareholder.

Ant said its 10 major shareholders, including Ma, have agreed not to act in concert when exercising their voting rights, and will only vote independently, so no shareholder will have “single or joint control of the Ant Group”.

The voting rights overhaul came after Chinese regulators pulled the plug on Ant’s $37 billion IPO in November 2020, and ordered the company to restructure its business.

As part of the corporate restructuring, Ant’s consumer finance unit has applied to expand its registered capital from $1.2 billion to $2.7 billion. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently approved the application, according to a government notice issued late last week.

After the fundraising campaign, Ant will control half of its main consumer finance unit, while the entity controlled by the Hangzhou city government will own a 10% stake. Hangzhou is where Alibaba and Ant have been headquartered since their founding.

Ant Group is a financial technology company under Alibaba and was founded by Ma.