According to ReutersTwo sources saidAnt Financial Services Group plans to list in Hong Kong as early as this year, with a target valuation of $200 billion.The unicorn plans to sell shares in Hong Kong and Chinese mainland at the same time, but may now prefer to list on the mainland, where Ant plans to sell 5-10 per cent of its shares in IPO, possibly one of the world's largest IPO this year, because of the smoother process. In recent months, Ant Technology has been communicating with its advisers about the listing, but these details have not been finalized and may change.

In response, Ant Technology said that the information about its IPO plan was false, and BABA did not immediately respond to this.

In the past, rumors like ants on the market popped up every once in a while.

In early February 2015, it was reported that Ant Financial Services Group planned to go public in 2016. At this time, it was only three or four months after the establishment of Ant Financial Services Group. In response, Ant Financial Services Group responded that there was no listing plan at present and would not comment on the market rumors.

In April 2016, Ant Financial Services Group completed a huge financing of US $4.5 billion in round B, second only to DiDi Global Inc. of Deep-Fried Chicken that year. At that time, there were rumors that this was its last round of financing and listing was imminent.

In August of the same year, it was reported that Ant Financial Services Group was seeking a listing on the Shanghai main board, and insiders even said that Ant Financial Services Group's listing is likely to be the largest IPO in the domestic market since 2010. After listing, Ant Financial Services Group will become a super enterprise with a market capitalization of more than 100 billion US dollars, realizing the feat of recreating BABA.

Hong Kong, Feb. 24 (Reuters)-China's securities regulator is considering a faster approval process for some technology companies, IPO. These include Ant Financial Services Group, Zhongan Online Insurance, Qihoo 360 and other companies, which will be given shortcuts to the listing of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. Later, Zhongan Online went to Hong Kong to be listed in July, while Qihoo 360 was listed in Jiangnan Jiajie in November, with only Ant Financial Services Group as usual.

After Ant Financial Services Group announced the completion of a new round of US $14 billion financing in June 2018, his valuation was as high as US $150 billion, and then there was a lot of news about Ant Financial Services Group's listing.

The most recent one was on January 14 this year, when there were media reports that Ant Financial Services Group planned to list in both places, and his listing team had recently begun to contact some institutional investors in Hong Kong. CICC and Credit Suisse have actually provided pre-listing services for Ant Financial Services Group for some time, and have done a lot of preparatory work.

It is not difficult to see that every time Ant Financial Services Group is reported to be listed, it is basically related to the two situations of financing and favorable policies. And most of them are financing, and the relevant news comes out before and after almost every financing.

On June 22nd, with the approval of the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration, Ant Financial Services Group's full name was changed from "Zhejiang Ant small and Micro Financial Services Group Co., Ltd." to "Ant Technology Group Co., Ltd.".

As soon as the news of Ant Financial Services Group's name change came out, the first reaction of the outside world was that it should do so in preparation for listing.

As for the name change, Ant Group's reply to the reporter emphasized the "social and economic digital upgrade" and no longer mentioned "finance". The company said: "the new name means that we will fully serve the needs of social and economic digital upgrading, but ants are still the same ant. It is our original intention to persist in innovation and use technology to create value for global consumers and small and micro businesses." "

Many of Ant Group's major products have been "definancialized" and transformed into local living platforms. In March this year, Alipay, the main product of ants, announced its new goal as an "open platform for digital life". The slogan "pay with payment", which has been used for many years, changed into "good life, Alipay", and advanced the entrance location of life scenes such as food and leisure. No longer content to be just a mobile payment platform.

Hu Xiaoming, CEO of Ant Group, said, "in the next three years, Alipay will join hands with 50, 000 service providers to help 40 million service providers complete digital upgrades." Through the upgrading of its own platform and sustained ecological opening up, Alipay will join hands with service providers to accelerate the reform of the offline service industry. "

In the field of online consumer finance, ants have long given up relying solely on their Internet small loan licenses to lend. In order to reduce leverage, they will turn to loans and joint loans after 2018.

"after renaming, one of the roles is to change the valuation system from the 'financial industry' to the 'Internet', which plays a role in raising the valuation. On June 22, a Hong Kong foreign investment banker thought. The overall valuation of financial companies is not high, and most of them still use EDITDA. At present, the price-to-book ratio (PB) of most listed banks is even less than 1. Although the profits of Internet companies are low, their valuations are much higher than those of banks.

In January, several media reported that Ant Financial Services Group valued his private offering shares at $200 billion in a bid to build a pre-IPO shareholder base. At the end of last year, a small number of Ant Financial Services Group shares were traded on the secondary market at a valuation of $200 billion.

Previously, Ant Financial Services Group completed round A (about US $1.85 billion), round B (about US $4.5 billion) and round C (about US $14 billion) in 2015, 2016 and 2018, respectively. After the completion of round C financing in June 2018, people close to Ant said that this round of investors generally agreed that Ant Financial Services Group was valued at between $1500 and $160 billion.