Ant Group’s potentially record-sized initial public offering could propel technology capital-raising in 2020 past the dizzying heights of the dotcom bubble, an extraordinary showing in a pandemic-stricken year fraught with geopolitical uncertainty.
Jack Ma’s Chinese financial titan aims to raise at least $30 billion in Hong Kong and Shanghai in October, which could push global first-time share sales by tech firms well past $57 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the highest since 1999, when tech companies raised $62 billion and famously ushered in a plethora of now-defunct internet outfits.
After an initial pandemic-induced lull, corporate share sales have come back with a vengeance, luring many of the same investors who pushed Apple Inc.’s market cap past the $2 trillion mark and ignited a broad rally in internet companies worldwide.
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