Jack Ma’s Ant Group Bows to Beijing With Company Overhaul

Ant Group Co., the financial-technology giant controlled by billionaire Jack Ma, will apply to become a financial holding company overseen by China’s central bank, overhauling its business to adapt to a new era of tighter regulation for internet companies.

In a statement, the People’s Bank of China said Ant representatives were summoned to a meeting Monday with four regulatory agencies that also included the country’s banking, securities and foreign-exchange overseers. It said a “comprehensive, viable rectification plan” for Ant has been formulated under the regulators’ supervision over the past few months.

The directive follows an intense regulatory assault on Mr. Ma’s business empire that began with the suspension of the company’s blockbuster initial public offering in November. Ant had been on track to sell more than US$34 billion worth of stock and list on stock exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai, when Beijing pulled the plug on the deal after Mr. Ma criticized financial regulators in a public speech.

In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ant was planning to fall fully in line with China’s financial regulations by turning itself into a financial holding company, essentially subjecting Ant to regulations similar to those governing banks.

Ant, which owns the ubiquitous mobile payment and lifestyle app Alipay, will have to correct what regulators called unfair competition in its payments business and improve its corporate governance. The Hangzhou-based company will have to reduce the liquidity risks of its investment products and shrink the assets under management of Yu’e Bao, its giant money-market mutual fund. Ant will also be required to break an “information monopoly” on the vast and detailed consumer data it has collected, the central bank said.

The Economic Daily, a state-run newspaper, said in a Monday commentary that Ant’s restructuring plan reflects the central government’s recent calls for the platform economy to return to its roots and focus on serving the real economy and people.

“The underlying colour of financial technology is still finance,” the newspaper said. Formulating a rectification plan is only the first step and going forward Ant should benchmark itself against the plan to fully meet the regulators’ demands, the newspaper said.

Ant’s Alipay has more than a billion users in China. It handled the equivalent of more than $17 trillion of digital-payment transactions in the year to June 2020, originated unsecured short-term loans to roughly 500 million people and sells many insurance policies, mutual funds and other investment products.

In a statement, Ant said it “will spare no effort in implementing the rectification plan, ensuring that the operation and growth of our financial-related businesses are fully compliant.”

In addition to applying to become a financial holding company, the company said it would set up a licensed personal credit reporting company. It plans to fold Jiebei and Huabei, its two popular online personal lending services, into a regulated consumer finance company. Ant said its payment business will remain committed to serving consumers and small businesses.

“We will put our growth proactively within the national strategic context,” Ant said, adding it will “strive to create societal value.”

The regulators’ disclosure of Ant’s plan comes shortly after Ant’s sister company, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., was fined the equivalent of US$2.8 billion by China’s antitrust regulator, which accused the e-commerce giant of abusing its dominant market position to the detriment of rivals, merchants and consumers. In addition to the record penalty, Alibaba agreed to undertake a comprehensive revamp of its operations and ensure its compliance with fair competition rules.

Mr. Ma, who is Ant’s controlling shareholder, co-founded Alibaba and still owns some stock in the company. Alibaba owns a third of Ant. Both companies—which have grown rapidly and are highly profitable—are trying hard to appease regulators and move forward for their employees and shareholders.

Last fall, Ant was on track to go public with a valuation of more than $300 billion, well above the market capitalizations of the world’s biggest banks. Less than three years earlier, in June 2018, investors had valued Ant at $150 billion following a large private capital raising.

More recent estimates of Ant’s valuation have varied widely. Many analysts and investors expect Ant’s profit potential to be reduced as it scales back some businesses including online consumer lending, which was previously its main growth driver. At the end of January, some American investment funds managed by Fidelity Investments had marked the value of their Ant shares at prices that implied a company valuation of about $230 billion, according to regulatory filings.

On Monday, Ant’s Chairman and Chief Executive Eric Jing said in an interview with a state-media outlet, The Paper, that Ant would maintain the continuity and quality of its services while it complies fully with regulations.

Mr. Jing, who retook the CEO job last month following the resignation of Ant’s other top executive Simon Hu, said the company won’t raise costs for consumers and the financial institutions it partners with.

China’s push to rein in Ant could end up limiting future developments in financial technology, said Ji Shaofeng, a former banking regulator who follows the microlending industry. “Putting everything under the scope of a financial regulator tends to discourage further technological innovation,” he said, adding Ant will have to navigate uncertainties and new rules that are in the process of being written.

U.S. investors’ enthusiasm over Japanese stocks at this time last year turned out to be misplaced, but the market is again on the list of potential ways to diversify. Corporate shake-ups, hints of inflation after years of declining prices, and a trade battle could work in its favor.

Japanese stocks started 2024 off strong, but an unexpected interest-rate increase in August by the Bank of Japan triggered a sharp decline that the market has spent the rest of the year clawing back. Weakness in the yen has cut into returns in dollar terms. The iShares MSCI Japan ETF , which isn’t hedged, barely returned 7% last year, compared with 30% for the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity Fund .

The market is relatively cheap, trading at 15 times forward earnings, about where it was a decade ago, and events on the horizon could give it a boost. Masakazu Takeda, who runs the Hennessy Japan fund, expects earnings growth of mid-single digits—2% after inflation and an additional 2% to 3% as companies return more to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.

“We can easily get 10% plus returns if there’s no exogenous risks,” Takeda told Barron’s in December.

The first couple months of the year could be volatile as investors assess potential spoilers, such as whether the new Trump administration limits its tariff battle to China or goes wider, which would hurt Japan’s export-dependent market. The size of the wage increases labor unions secure in spring negotiations is another risk.

But beyond the headlines, fund managers and strategists see potential positive factors. First, 2024 will likely turn out to have been a record year for corporate earnings because some companies have benefited from rising prices and increasing demand, as well as better capital allocation.

In a note to clients, BofA strategist Masashi Akutsu said the market may again focus on a shift in corporate behavior that has begun to take place in recent years. For years, corporate culture has been resistant to change but recent developments—a battle over Seven & i Holdings that pits the founding family and investors against a bid from Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard , and Honda and Nissan ’s merger are examples—have been a wake-up call for Japanese companies to pursue overhauls. He expects a pickup in share buybacks as companies begin to think about shareholder returns more.

A record number of companies have also delisted, often through management buyouts, in another indication that corporate behavior is changing in favor of shareholders.

“Japan is attracting a lot of activist interest in a lot of different guises, says Donald Farquharson, head of the Japanese equities team for Baillie Gifford. “While shareholder proposals are usually unsuccessful, they do start in motion a process behind the scenes about the capital structure.”

For years, money-losing businesses were left alone in large corporations, but the recent spate of activism and focus on shareholder returns has pushed companies to jettison such divisions or take measures to improve them.

That isn‘t to say it is going to be an easy year. A more protectionist world could be problematic for sentiment.

But Japan’s approach could become a model for others in this new world. “Japan has spent the last 30 to 40 years investing in business overseas, with the automotive industry, for example, manufacturing a lot of the cars in the geographies it sells in,” Farquharson said. “That’s true of a lot of what Japan is selling overseas.”

Trade volatility that hits Japanese stocks broadly could offer opportunities. Concerns about tariffs could drag down companies such as Tokio Marine Holdings, which gets half its earnings by selling insurance in the U.S., but wouldn’t be affected by duties. Similarly, Shin-Etsu Chemicals , a silicon wafer behemoth that sells critical materials, including to the chip industry, is another potential winner, Takeda says.

If other companies follow the lead of Japanese exporters and set up shop in the markets they sell in, Japanese automation makers like Nidec and Keyence might benefit as a way to control costs in countries where wages are higher, Farquharson says.

And as Japanese workers get real wage growth and settle into living in an economy no longer in a deflationary rut, companies focused on domestic consumers such as Rakuten Group should benefit. The internet company offers retail and travel, both of which should benefit, but also is home to an online banking and investment platform.

Rakuten’s enterprise value—its market capitalization plus debt—is still less than its annual sales, in part because the company had been investing heavily in its mobile network. But that division is about to hit break even, Farquharson says.

A stock that stands to benefit from consumer spending and the waves or tourists the weak yen is attracting is Orix , a conglomerate whose businesses include an international airport serving Osaka. The company’s aircraft-leasing business also benefits from the production snags and supply-chain disruptions at Airbus and Boeing , Takeda says.

An added benefit: Its financial businesses stand to get a boost as the Bank of Japan slowly normalizes interest rates. The stock trades at about nine times earnings and about par for book value, while paying a 4% dividend yield.

Corrections & Amplifications: The past year is expected to turn out to have been a record one for corporate earnings in Japan. An earlier version of this article incorrectly gave the time frame as the 12 months through March. Separately, Masashi Akutsu is a strategist at BofA. An earlier version incorrectly identified his employer as UBS.

Jack Ma’s Ant Group Bows to Beijing With Company Overhaul

China’s central bank said Ant will apply to become a financial holding company.