Ant Group Proposes Share Buyback at Roughly 30% of IPO Valuation

Ant Group Co. Ltd. has offered to buy back some shares at a whopping 70% discount to the unrealized valuation for its ill-fated IPO, shortly after regulators hit the fintech giant with an almost $1 billion fine.

Ant Group announced Saturday that it had proposed to repurchase as much as 7.6% at a price that values the company at approximately 567 billion yuan ($78 billion). The offer represents a roughly 40% discount to the approximate 960 billion yuan figure achieved in Ant Group’s last fundraising round in 2018, and is around 70% cheaper than the 2.1 trillion yuan valuation touted in its planned 2020 IPO.