Feb. 20, 2021 - Epoch Times
05:21
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| The Wall Street Journal reported on February 17th that the initial public offering of Jack Ma's Ant Group Company was blocked by authorities for a previously undisclosed reason. | |
| Beijing was unsettled by the company's complex ownership structure and the people who stood to benefit from the mega-IPO. In the weeks before Ant Group's planned listing, a CCP investigation found that its prospectus masked the complexities of its shareholding structure, said the report, citing more than a dozen CCP officials and government advisers. | |
| A coterie of well-connected CCP bigwigs hold stakes in Ant Group through layers of opaque investment vehicles. | |
| Some of them involve political families that pose a potential threat to Xi Jinping. | |
| According to the Wall Street Journal, in a previously unreported investigation, authorities found that Beowu Capital, founded by Jiang Zhecheng, the grandson of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin, owned nearly 1% of Ant Group, In a roundabout way through Beijing Jingguan Investment Centre, a private equity firm, and thereby became one of the top ten shareholders of Ant Financial. | |
| But Ant Group's prospectus makes no mention of Beowu's partnership with Beijing Jingguan Investment Centre. | |
| The shareholder behind the other investment vehicle is Beijing Jiao De Investment Group, which also invests in Ant Group through a circuitous way. | |
| Beijing Jiao De Investment Group is controlled by Li Botan, the son-in-law of former Politburo Standing Committee member Jia Qinglin. | |
| Jia is a member of Jiang Zemin's faction and has been locked in a power struggle with Xi. | |
| Friends of Jack Ma also own Ant Group, through various investment vehicles, including Guo Guangchang, chairman of Foshan International, Xi Yuzhe, chairman of Giant Interactive, and Lu Zheqiang, chairman and CEO of China Oceanwide Holdings Group. | |
| Previous reports have shown that Guo Guangchang has a complicated relationship with the Shanghai clique officials. | |
| Zhang Enchong, a Shanghai-based lawyer, said that Guo is inextricably linked to Zhang Miancang, the son of Zhang Zemin. | |
| The crackdown on the listing of Jack Ma's ant group is related to the background of power struggles between various CCP factions. | |
| J.S. Xing Lin himself is a key figure in the Jiang faction, not to mention Chen Zemin's own son and grandson, all of whom have huge interest in the ant group. | |
| So what you can see is that so far, the infighting between various CCP factions is still intense. | |
| In the end, his campaign against corruption is still about stability and maintaining the rule of the CCP. Since taking office in late 2012, Xi has directed his anger at corruption within the CCP, the WSJ reported. | |
| According to people familiar with the investigation, Xi had little interest in listing Ant Group, which would funnel huge profits to China's princelings. | |
| For Xi Jinping, this would only widen the income gap and undermine his anti-poverty efforts. | |
| US-based commentator Lan Xu noted that Xi Jinping carried out anti-corruption efforts during his first term but didn't touch the root of the Jiang faction. | |
| Which is also true for his crackdown on Ant group now. | |
| On one hand, he doesn't want Zhang to have a chance to regain power and influence. | |
| However, while he cracked down on Ant, he did not target the specific people in the group who were associated with Zhang Zemin and Jia Xinin, the key figures of the Zhang faction. | |
| U.S.-based commentator Xin Tianxing believes that the authorities' call to stop Ant Group's IPO has little to do with reducing the gap between rich and poor, and the fact that the Wall Street Journal is now revealing a CCP investigation that has never been made public since the blocking of Ant Group's IPO has caused such a negative impact on international markets. | |
| Investors generally believe that no private Chinese company can escape the CCP's grip, no matter how big it is. | |
| Even the CCP's own media didn't mention this. | |
| It seemed like Xi actually, for the sake of the common people's well-being, punished a group that exacerbated the wealth gap with such a heavy hand. | |
| So I'm thinking, who disclosed information for this Wall Street Journal's story? | |
| In other words, he was trying to dispel the suspicion of the CCP regime in the United States. | |
| After a rocky IPO, Bloomberg said in late January that Ant Group's valuation was down about 66% from last year. | |
| Ant Group also recently struck a deal with the CCP to reorganize Ant Financial into a financial holding company, which will subject it to the same rules that banks follow. | |
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