Ma Yun was jointly interviewed by four departments.
According to the website of China Securities Regulatory Commission, on June 2nd, 165438+ China People's Bank, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and State Administration of Foreign Exchange conducted regulatory interviews with Ma Yun, the actual controller of Ant Group, Jing Xiandong, the chairman and Hu Xiaoming, the president.
With the listing of Ant Group, how to implement more effective financial supervision on financial technology giants has aroused heated discussion in the market. 101October 3 1 day, the State Council financial stability and development Committee held a special meeting, pointing out that at present, financial technology and financial innovation are developing rapidly, and the relationship between financial development, financial stability and financial security must be properly handled.
The Finance Committee meeting stated that it is necessary to implement the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Session, adhere to the principles of marketization, rule of law and internationalization, respect international knowledge and rules, and correctly handle the relationship between the government and the market. We should not only encourage innovation and promote entrepreneurship, but also strengthen supervision, and fully incorporate financial activities into supervision according to law to effectively prevent risks. The regulatory authorities should conscientiously do a good job and treat similar businesses and similar subjects equally. It is necessary to supervise market players to operate in compliance with laws and regulations, abide by regulatory rules, improve corporate governance, and fulfill social responsibilities. It is necessary to enhance the comprehensiveness and transparency of business information disclosure, protect the legitimate rights and interests of financial consumers and strengthen investor education. It is necessary to improve the fair competition review mechanism, strengthen anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition law enforcement and justice, and enhance the comprehensive market supervision ability. It is necessary to establish basic systems and standards such as property rights, transactions and circulation of data resources and strengthen the protection of personal information.
What happened to Ma Yun? Why was he interviewed?
Then why talk about the "Big Three" ants when they are about to go public? You know, 1 1.5, ants will be listed simultaneously in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
As the greatest financing plan in the universe, the listing of Ant Group is a "great monument" in the history of CITIC Construction Investment. Ma Yun is also the sculptor of this "big character monument". In order to make the ant group and the supervision system harmonious with each other, the supervision layer must communicate with the actual controller Ma Yun.
In that case, why not interview Ma Yungang immediately after he fired his gun?
It is estimated that the regulatory authorities may need to look at the reactions of all parties in the market. Ants are about to accept new subscriptions from various institutions, which cannot affect this genesis event. Therefore, it is decided to conduct regulatory interviews after all parties have subscribed and paid.
In addition, because the outside world has been rumored that ants will be born to create wealth after listing, the Hong Kong stock market has already seen a 25% premium in the "dark market" transaction. Therefore, in order to prevent the listing of ants from being hyped by hot money, which will have a great "siphon effect" on the capital market and calm the unbalanced psychology of "making wealth and sucking blood" in the hearts of ordinary people, the regulatory authorities chose to talk about Ma Yun and his party at this juncture "after subscription and before listing".
At this juncture, it can not only effectively conduct interviews, but also prevent large market fluctuations, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone. You know, some time ago, bank stocks fell for several days in a row, and there were many strange situations. In addition to the institutional sell-off caused by performance fluctuations, one of the main conjectures is that many institutions want to share a piece of the action at the initial stage of the listing of ants.
After all, the market value of hundreds of billions of listed ant groups is enough to support the intervention and speculation of any funds in the market. This is a once-in-a-century "aircraft carrier-level" speculative opportunity for large funds that have been buried in banking stocks for a long time without making money.
It can be seen that it is indeed well-intentioned for the regulatory authorities to talk at this time. In this way, the possibility of listing of Ant Group is greatly reduced. It is said that many institutions and investors who have won the lottery are ready to sell cash on the first day of listing to prevent the meat that appears in their mouths from running away.
In fact, there is a huge bubble in the issue price-earnings ratio of Ant Group, which is more than 150 times. Under such a huge bubble, it is difficult for any hype to make this elephant fall again.
There is another question, which is also the most mysterious and crucial question. What did the regulatory interview talk about?
The outside world knows almost nothing about this, we just make a wild guess. I guess I may have talked about posts, supervision and innovation, and "post-recruitment" and so on.
As we all know, Ma Yun founded Ant Group, and Ant became the largest Internet company in China. Although it is an internet company, almost all of them rely on financial business to make profits. And this kind of "four unlike" giant, if not restrained, will inevitably appear the embarrassing situation of "too big to lose, supporting soldiers and respecting themselves".
This is definitely not what regulators want to see. In other words, any form of oligopoly is an external manifestation of "imperialism" (personal capital). Therefore, the regulatory authorities must let Ma Yun put his position right.
In addition, how supervision and innovation do not interfere with each other and support each other may also be the focus of the interview. After all, the reason for this interview is that the lag of financial supervision mentioned by Ma Yungang will inhibit financial innovation.
In fact, I don't quite understand whether there is any conflict or contradiction between supervision and innovation. However, the author understands that China's financial market is ruled by law, and the regulatory authorities have never cracked down on any form of financial innovation, but the premise is that it must be legal and compliant.
Any form of illegal innovation is a violation of the law and a contempt for the concept of governing the country according to law, which is also the main reason for the gradual demise of P2P.
Finally, Bian Xiao also boldly speculated that the question of ants accepting "woo" in the future was also one of the contents of the interview. However, the author's so-called woo does not mean that the government wants to "steal" the wealth feast of ants, but to provide scientific macro guidance to ants to prevent them from getting out of control. At the special moment when ants go public, we must give them strong macro guidance and restraint.
As we all know, in the era of financial big data, mastering data is equivalent to mastering a cash cow. But data should not be obtained for free or stolen. If Google, Microsoft and Amazon can call personal information to do financial business at will, they can all become the largest financial institutions in the world.
But the reality is that the use of personal information by these technology giants is strictly controlled at home and around the world. Even so, this year, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google and other technology giants have also been subject to anti-monopoly investigations by their own governments.
Investigators believe that these technology giants have mastered "key business and communication hubs, and any action taken by any company may profoundly and permanently affect hundreds of millions of people;" They have too much power and are using it to eliminate competition, creativity and innovation. "
The supervision experience of countries around the world shows that the supervision of Internet giants has always been strict, not laissez-faire, and Internet giants cannot be allowed to override the law and supervision.
On the same day, "Bai Hua" and "Jiebai" were named for allegedly infringing on consumers' rights and interests.
In addition, Guo Wuping, director of the Consumer Protection Bureau of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, recently issued a document saying that the core products of financial technology companies such as "Flower Garden", "White Strip" and "Free Payment" are not essentially different from credit cards issued by banks, and they also have the functions of credit supply and installment payment. Interest and expenses paid by consumers are the main sources of their profits; Another example is "borrowing", "gold bars" and "small loans", which are not essentially different from the small loans provided by banks.
Guo Wuping also said that at present, there are no clear rules and requirements for consumer rights protection of financial technology companies, and there has been regulatory arbitrage, which has formed unfair competition with licensed financial institutions, and it is ultimately difficult to effectively protect the rights and interests of financial consumers. In the era of digital economy, data has become an important factor of production. The essence of these chaos is to turn the data that should have been taken from the people and used by the people into the capital for some companies to seek their own interests and charge consumers high service fees. Therefore, the chaos of financial technology companies infringing on consumers' rights and interests is more worthy of attention.
165438+1October 4th, both A shares of Ant Group were suspended from listing.
165438+1On the evening of October 3, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced that recently, the actual controller, chairman and general manager of your company were jointly interviewed and supervised by relevant departments, and your company also reported major issues such as changes in the financial technology supervision environment. This major event may cause your company to fail to meet the requirements of listing or information disclosure. Therefore, it was decided to postpone the listing of Ant Group.
Subsequently, Ant Group also announced the suspension of H-share listing, and said: "The company will announce further details about the suspension of H-share listing and the return of the applied shares as soon as possible."
In response to the suspension of listing of A shares and H shares, Ant Group published "To Investors", saying that it is deeply sorry for the troubles caused to investors, and the company will properly handle the follow-up work in accordance with the relevant rules of the two exchanges. "We will maintain close communication with the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the regulatory authorities on the next issue and listing, and disclose relevant information in a timely manner."
Why did the IPO of Ant Group press the "pause button" at this time?
Why did the IPO of Ant Group press the "pause button" at this time? According to the industry, this may be related to the changes in the regulatory environment, especially the Interim Measures for the Administration of Internet Microfinance Business (Draft for Comment) drafted by the CBRC and the People's Bank of China on 2 October (hereinafter referred to as the Measures).
Among them, regarding joint loans, Article 15 of the Measures clearly puts forward four detailed regulatory requirements, and the industry generally pays attention to the regulatory index that "in a single joint loan, the proportion of small loan companies operating online small loan business shall not be less than 30%".
In addition, the "Measures" also stipulates that in principle, the balance of small loans for a natural person's single-family network shall not exceed 300,000 yuan, and shall not exceed one third of its average annual income in the last three years, with the lower of these two amounts as the maximum loan amount.
A senior manager from Public Offering of Fund told Shell Finance reporter that at present, the key points that have a greater impact are that joint loans need to be replenished with capital during the transition period of policy implementation and turned into loan-assisting business, and to what extent the licenses of consumer finance companies can make up for the growth of business volume. Secondly, it is mentioned in the detailed rules that "in principle, the balance of small loans for a single-family network of natural persons shall not exceed RMB 300,000, and shall not exceed one third of its average annual income in the last three years, and the maximum loan amount shall be the lower of these two amounts", which may be even more lethal, because many customers may not be able to provide proof of income. How to land this matter is a problem, which requires follow-up regulatory adjustment or specific explanation. Ant Group must think so at present.
Indeed, financial business and loan business have created a lot of income and profits for Ant Group.
It is reported that the total revenue of Ant Group consists of three categories: digital payment and merchant services, digital financial technology services and innovative business. From June to June, 2020, the proportion of the three categories was 35.86%, 63.39% and 0.75% respectively. From this, it can be found that digital financial technology services are the main source of income for Ant Group. Among them, the micro-loan technology platform revenue reached 28.586 billion yuan, accounting for 39.4 1% of the operating income, which can be described as the "pillar" of the revenue of Ant Group.
Ant Group is the largest online consumer credit and Wechat business credit platform in China. As of June 30th, the balance of consumer credit contributed by the company's platform was173.2 billion yuan, and that of Wechat business was 4.21700 million yuan.
At the same time, during the reporting period, the income of the micro-loan technology platform of Ant Group also increased rapidly, which became the main driving force for the company's overall income growth. 20 18 and 20 19 increased by 39% and 87% respectively, and increased by 59% in the first half of this year.
Ji, a well-known contributor to Internet finance who has worked in the supervision system for many years and the founder of China Small and Micro Credit Institutions Business Innovation Cooperation Alliance, said that the measures are relatively clear for the online small loan business of financial technology giants such as Ant Group, which is also beyond doubt.
In his view, the so-called technological assistance of some financial technology giants is to "bypass" financial supervision through technology in disguise, and "now it is" framed "". Regarding the support behind the financial technology giants providing credit services, Shao Shao Feng believes that "they now have a license to spend money (that is, consumer finance companies), but the supervision of consumer money is very strict."
For the future of the giant, Ji put forward his own point of view, that is, the financial business and its technical business related to the license plate will face the possibility of splitting.
Indeed, after the news of the suspension of listing came out, there were rumors in the market that the ant group might separate the flower buds from the borrowing buds and re-evaluate, but at present, the shell financial reporter has not verified this news.
In fact, as early as 2065438+July 2009, Bloomberg reported that Ant Group (then named Ant Financial) planned to set up a new company to apply for a financial holding license. Ant Group plans to transfer the business related to financial license to the newly established subsidiary, and the parent company of Ant Group will retain the financial technology business including financial cloud and risk management. This is actually to separate the financial and technology businesses, but it failed to take shape in the end.
Ant Group was suspended from listing. What did Ma Yun do wrong?
Ma Yun's interview is big news. A paper announcement was made in the evening to suspend the listing of Ant Group.
This matter has to start with the 40-member financial summit on the Bund in Shanghai on October 24th, 65438/KLOC-0. It was at this summit that Ma Yun stabbed a "hornet's nest" after retirement, and there was more than one.
It is "pawnbroker's thinking" to bombard traditional banks, mocking the Basel Accord as an "old people's club", criticizing supervision will only stifle innovation by issuing documents, and bluntly saying that China's finance has "no systemic risk" because there is no "system" at all. At this time, it is the eve of the listing of Ant Financial.
The actual controlled ant A+H will be launched at the same time, which will set the world's largest IPO with a market value of more than 2 trillion. Not only can you become the richest man in China, but it is just around the corner to catch up with the richest man in the world. At this time, it is simply offending the bank to openly fire guns in all directions to make enemies. It is also directly on the opposite side of supervision. Is it to make friends with princes, or are many rich people beginning to swell?
This is not the home of Tmall Annual Meeting, nor the stage of Wuzhen Internet Conference, but a high-standard financial summit under the background of the government. How high is the specification? Chen Yuan, Zhou Xiaochuan, Yi Gang and the heads of the four major banks were present. It can be said that sitting under the stage are all "super bosses" in today's political and business circles. Arranging a 20-minute speech is actually to support a scene. Who knows that Ma Yun, who has always claimed to be a "political and business person", actually took the manuscript to "sing the opposite". Did he not know the consequences, or did he deliberately "set himself on fire"?
Sure enough, it thundered. Aftershocks continue throughout the economy, including shock and anger. Countless people are watching and waiting, and what attitude the government and supervision will take. After all, as a traffic giant of today's Internet finance, his gunfire is too lethal.
Soon, the north wind started and the wind direction changed. Zou Jiayi, Zhou Xiaochuan, Shang Fulin and other important economic leaders have expressed their views, directly or indirectly criticizing Ma Yun's "system" theory. Mainstream media such as Guangming. Com, Financial Times and Securities Times also voiced their voices continuously, refuting Ma Yun's alarmism. And this is just the beginning!
101October 3 1 day, the the State Council financial Committee held a special meeting, and decided to improve the modern financial supervision system, resolutely rectify all kinds of financial chaos, resolutely safeguard financial stability, and firmly hold the bottom line that systematic financial risks will not occur. In short, financial supervision is not a question of whether to manage it or not, but a question of how to strengthen supervision.
No matter how big the enterprise is, it can't stay out of supervision!
165438+1October 2nd, heavy news came one after another!
The Central Committee for Deep Reform, the People's Bank of China China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the People's Bank of China intensively issued targeted documents to set an upper limit for "online microfinance business":
In a single joint loan, the contribution ratio of small loan companies operating online small loan business shall not be less than 30%, the loan balance of online loan companies to a single natural person shall not exceed 300,000 in principle, and the personal income shall not exceed 1/3.
At the same time, Huang, vice chairman of China International Economic Research Center, also publicly pointed out where Alipay borrowed money and spent money. Loan from the bank first, then ABS. After infinite circulation, the capital of 3 billion can be increased to 100 times, and the scale of 300 billion can be obtained.
According to public information, ants can bring 9.5 billion profits a year by borrowing and spending money without paying a penny. It is no exaggeration to say that they are white gloves. And this 9.5 billion, almost all of them are contributed by advanced consumption and excessive consumption after 90.
The problem is that you know he is arbitrage, he also knows he is arbitrage, and he also knows that you know he is arbitrage, but he is not only arbitrage, but also pretending to save the universe. Without the green light of supervision for so many years, can Ali or ants go today? So anyone can scold bank supervision, only Ma Yun can't.
165438+1On the evening of October 2, the regulatory authorities finally released a big move:
China People's Bank, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, China Securities Regulatory Commission and State Administration of Foreign Exchange collectively interviewed Ma Yun, the actual controller of Ant Group, Jing Xiandong, the chairman, and Hu Xiaoming, the president. Unprecedented, unprecedented in strength.
At 9 o'clock today, a fatal blow followed. The Shanghai Stock Exchange issued an announcement: Suspending the listing of Ant Group! A set of combination boxing, boxing to the meat, directly put a "tightening spell" on the ants. There are many discussions in the workshop that this is related to Ma Yun's previous excessive remarks.
Does it matter? Of course there is! But it is not necessarily because of this relationship. Supervision is targeted, and Ma Yun did not shoot for no reason. He didn't come here by chance. It is impossible for him not to know who is sitting in the audience, nor to know how lethal the shot is, nor to be really crazy.
Either one shot to death or one shot to ashes. He is such a clever man that he has never seen anything. He talks nonsense. How could he make such a low-level mistake? The only possibility is intentional!
As the world's largest IPO, Ant Financial has not only mastered the full financial license, but also the traffic overlord of Internet finance. After listing, it is easier to form a situation of "winner takes all" and "oligopoly".
The essence of Internet finance is not the Internet, but finance. Will not be separated from financial attributes because of the core of science and technology. And finance is the foundation of a country.
Giants like ants have kidnapped a large number of users, so it is impossible for supervision not to intervene. It is even more impossible to change it from an ant to a "leech". Otherwise, systemic financial risks may occur at any time!
When an enterprise grows bigger, it will have national attributes. Based on this, on the eve of the listing of ants, the supervision may have intervened and found the relevant potential risks, and saw the huge hidden dangers of this borderless financial arbitrage to the entire national economic system. Once the regulation is tightened, this good day will come to an end.
For example, Alipay has an annual reserve of more than 654.38 trillion yuan, and it also has tens of billions of interest when lying down. Borrowing Bai He's "White Wolf with Empty Gloves" story may not continue. And all this, Ma Yun is naturally clear.
Therefore, his sword finger at the Bund Financial Summit was biased. As Chairman china entrepreneur club, he tried to kidnap the whole business and internet circles to influence the direction of regulatory policy.
Ants mix elephants and dress up as pigs to eat tigers.
Sure enough, public opinion is in uproar and there are many supporters.
But he neglected one thing, that is, the determination and will of national financial supervision. If the sky is crazy, it will rain, and if people are crazy, it will be a disaster. Ma Yun's words are not unreasonable. We also believe that Ma Yun is looking to the future, and we are more willing to believe that Mr. Ma is an entrepreneur with a very negative sense of social responsibility and deserves respect. However, it is obviously inappropriate and inappropriate to create regulatory opposition in this way. Uncontrolled capital is doomed to be a disaster.
The joint interview between the four departments is undoubtedly a serious warning. Later, the official statement of the ant clearly revealed the meaning of "the horse has served this battle". Don't regard the progress of the times as a machete for harvesting leeks. Don't forget, everything is measured, it's too late.
No matter how big an ant is, it is also an ant!
Can Ant Group go public in the future?
Obviously, literally, the suspension of listing does not mean the termination of listing, but this move undoubtedly makes the subsequent listing of Ant Group full of fog.
Dong Dengxin, a core member of the 50-member Forum on China's Pension Finance and director of the Institute of Financial Securities of Wuhan University of Science and Technology, told reporters that the current situation still needs the wisdom of the CSRC. In the process of suspending listing, if Ant Group can answer the questions and concerns of the CSRC well and give a satisfactory answer to the regulatory authorities, I believe the listing process of Ant Group will continue to advance.
Wang Pengbo, an analyst at Analysys Payment, told reporters that the Shanghai Stock Exchange requires Ant Group to make a risk statement and evaluate the changes in the financial technology regulatory environment in its listing place, which is completely reasonable and compliant. From the perspective of protecting shareholders, the starting point of prompting risks should also be suspended, but suspension does not mean withdrawal. There have been corresponding examples before. I believe that as long as it meets the conditions of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, it is still possible to continue listing.
Wang, a senior investment banker, told the reporter that the suspension is not to cancel the approval or veto, so listing is a matter of time.
It is worth mentioning that the Shanghai Stock Exchange said in this announcement that the actual controller, chairman and general manager of Ant Group were recently jointly interviewed by relevant departments, and Ant Group also reported that changes in its financial technology supervision environment may lead to major issues that Ant Group does not meet the conditions for issuance and listing or information disclosure requirements.
According to the relevant rules, that is to say, the regulatory interviews and changes in the regulatory environment of Ant Group may affect whether it meets the listing conditions. If the Shanghai Stock Exchange considers that it does not meet the listing conditions after examination, it shall issue an opinion and report it to the CSRC; If it meets the listing requirements, Ant Group can still go public.
However, there are also different views. Dong Ximiao, chief researcher of Zhongguancun (00093 1, shares it) Internet Finance Research Institute, told Shell Finance reporter that the most important question at present is whether Ant Group is a technology company or a financial company. Is it suitable for a company that mainly relies on financial business to be listed in science and technology innovation board? In my opinion, although the ant group changed its name, it doesn't mean changing the restrictions. Its main profits and income come from financial business, so it should be recognized as a financial company, which does not conform to the positioning of science and technology innovation board. Therefore, even if it wants to go public, it should adjust its listing Committee.
How does the change of regulatory environment affect the valuation of Ant Group?
Undoubtedly, major regulatory changes will have an impact on the valuation of Ant Group. However, Dong Ximiao believes that the ant group will not be able to go to the market for a while, and it may be necessary to pay attention to which sectors are inferior in the follow-up and may have to be re-evaluated. At present, it is impossible to judge how much impact it has on its valuation.
Wang Pengbo also said that the valuation of financial technology companies still depends on the basic profit model. If the essence depends on financial profit, it should adapt to the regulatory framework of financial institutions. Some insiders also told the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter that if the flower garden and borrowing business are really divested, the valuation of Ant Group will be greatly reduced. "It is estimated that there are hundreds of billions left." The person said.
What impact does the suspension of listing of Ant Group have on individual and institutional investors?
As an ant group, which is expected to surpass Kweichow Moutai (6005 19) in one fell swoop after listing, it has attracted much attention from the market since it disclosed its listing plan.
According to its previous announcement, Ant Group's A shares are priced at 68.8 yuan/share, and Hong Kong stocks are priced at 80 Hong Kong dollars/share. The total market value of the company will reach about 2. 1 trillion yuan. According to the listing plan, the total fundraising scale of A+H shares of Ant Group will reach about 230 billion yuan.
1 65438+1October1Sunday evening, Ant Group also announced the preliminary offline placement results and the online lottery results announcement, with the lottery number of ***70 1696. At that time, many netizens had exposed the lottery information on social media. In addition, a number of fund products participated in the offline innovation of Ant Group and obtained the initial offline placement, including many products led by star fund managers such as Liu and Feng Mingyuan.
Then, what impact will the suspension of the listing of A+H shares by Ant Group have on these individual investors and institutional investors who have already won the lottery or been placed?
Indeed, at present, Ant Group has only been suspended from listing and has not been cancelled. Some investment bankers said that Ant Group may need to re-evaluate and re-price. If the price is re-priced, the difference can be refunded or reissued. After re-pricing, investors should re-choose whether to buy.
Dong Dengxin said: "The current situation is really embarrassing. After all, Ant Group has completed the entire IPO review and registration process, and the offline and online subscription of new shares are basically completed, just waiting for the payment. In this case, the suspension of listing should be the first case encountered by the regulatory authorities. I think the listing of Ant Group is a benchmark. As a very influential company, I believe that the regulatory authorities will treat it with caution and properly handle it. " Dong Dengxin said.
According to an interview with Shell Finance reporter, the industry and experts generally believe that the follow-up listing process of Ant Group remains to be seen, and it may also face re-valuation, re-pricing and re-issuance. Everything is still unknown at present. Therefore, the impact on investors cannot be estimated.
However, in any case, the suspension of listing itself has already affected investors. For example, according to the announcement, after the online investors subscribe for new shares, they should fulfill the obligation of fund settlement according to the announcement, and ensure that their fund accounts have enough funds for subscription of new shares at the end of June 2020, 5438+065438+10.2. In other words, the investor's funds were newly occupied by the ant group, which actually paid the "sunk cost".
In addition, many "basic people" have previously purchased the strategic placement fund of Ant Group on Alipay. In terms of allocation ratio, the proportion that a single strategic placing fund can be allocated to Ant Group is 65,438+00%. At present, the listing of Ant Group is suspended. How to coordinate the proportion of this part of investment? Shell Finance reporter found that this morning, E Fund, CEIBS, Huaxia Fund, Penghua Fund and Huitianfu Fund all responded in Fortune, saying that because Ant Group suspended its A+H listing plan, the strategic investment originally planned for the listing of Ant Group was also suspended accordingly. At the same time, he said that all funds have been established, and the fund operation will not be affected. Shell Finance reporters will continue to pay attention to the follow-up development.