Ant Group denies rumors of IPO plans

Investing.com -- Ant Group, the fintech firm co-founded by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, has publicly denied plans for a potential backdoor listing.

The company, an affiliate of Alibaba (NYSE:BABA ), responded to social media speculation of its intention to go public, stating that these rumors were "completely false."

In a post on the Chinese social media platform Weibo (NASDAQ:WB ) on Thursday, Ant Group clarified that it currently has no plans to go public.

The company warned that such rumors were being spread by various social media accounts to attract people into groups offering stock recommendations, cautioning market observers to be wary of these "stock recommendation scams."

The company also shared an image on its Weibo post, showing several posts suggesting that it might go public through a shell company.

Ant Group, the owner of the popular digital-payment platform Alipay, had its initial public offering (IPO) plans in Hong Kong and Shanghai halted by Beijing in 2020.

The company faced a fine of nearly $1 billion last year from China's financial regulators for issues with corporate governance, investor protections, and violations of rules related to conducting banking and insurance activities, among other things.

Despite these setbacks, Ant Group was highly profitable prior to its derailed IPO plans. The company reported $3 billion in profit for the first half of 2020 in a filing at the time.

Ant recently reported that Alipay+, its cross-border mobile payment and digital technology solutions, connects over 90 million merchants in 66 markets with 1.6 billion user accounts.

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Source: Investing.com