Thursday December 24th 2020
Online giant in its sights
Beijing investigates Alibaba monopoly
Things are not going well for Jack Ma: First, Ant's IPO failed, and now the Chinese authorities are launching investigations against the parent company Alibaba. The Chinese online giant is said to have violated competition law. The stock crashes.
The Chinese authorities have launched an investigation into the online giant Alibaba for possible violations of competition law. The Chinese company is suspected of "monopolistic practices," said the market regulation authority. According to the Chinese state media, the authority also wants to hold talks with Ant, Alibaba's financial arm, as part of its supervisory duties. The price of the group collapsed by more than seven percent after the supervisory authority announced the start of trading in Hong Kong.
At the beginning of November, Ant surprisingly canceled his IPO. The background was apparently pressure from the Chinese supervisory authorities. With a volume equivalent to almost 30 billion euros, the Ant IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong should be the largest of all time.
Ant is part of Alipay, the leading online payment service in China. Before the IPO was canceled, Alipay was criticized by the state-controlled banking sector. Alibaba founder Jack Ma was called in by the authorities.
According to the company, more than 700 million people in China use Alipay every month. According to this, more than 14.4 trillion euros are transferred annually via the service. Alipay also gives loans to households and smaller companies, offers asset management and insurance – and thus extends into the state-controlled financial sector.
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