Ant Group has overhauled its shareholding structure, diluting the voting power of founder Jack Ma to make China’s largest fintech company more “transparent and diversified,” a crucial step deemed necessary to put its much-anticipated initial public offering back on track, reports the South China Morning Post.
Ma will end an acting-in-concert pact with Ant’s chairman Eric Jing, former chief executive Simon Hu and Alibaba Group Holding veteran Jiang Fang, which gave Ma 53.46% of the voting power in the fintech company, according to a statement on Saturday.
After the restructuring, major shareholders “will independently exercise their voting rights,” Ant said. “No shareholder will, alone or jointly with another shareholder, have the power to control the outcome of Ant’s general meetings,” or “nominate the majority of Ant’s board of directors,” and “therefore … have control over Ant.”
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