Chinese regulators are studying plans to force Ant Group Co (螞蟻集團) to divest equity investments in some financial companies, curbing the company’s influence over the sector, a person familiar with the matter said.
The plans, which would involve pushing Ant to sell some of its minority shares in operations such as banking-related businesses, are part of a push by watchdog agencies to regulate so-called financial holding companies, said the person, who requested not to be named.
An Ant spokesperson declined to comment on Thursday.
China is cracking down on Jack Ma’s (馬雲) Internet empire, which includes e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴).
Ant has been told by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to devise a plan to overhaul its business and come up with a timetable as soon as possible.
It is now said to be planning a holding company to house its wealth management, consumer lending, insurance and payments services, as well as MYbank.
Under such a structure, Ant’s businesses would likely be subject to more capital restrictions and the company might be required to unload some of its wide-ranging investments should regulations tighten further, which potentially curbs its ability to lend more and expand at the pace of the past few years.
Ant’s total minority investments in finance-related operations do not exceed the current regulatory limit of 15 percent of its net assets, another source said.
The company holds shares in state-owned Postal Savings Bank of China Co (中國郵政儲蓄銀行) and a 30 percent stake in online lender MYbank.
Those assets do not need to be sold under the current rules for financial holding companies, although that might change if regulations tighten, the source added.
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