Talking about the relationship between Ant Financial and Alibaba reminds Peng Kun of a sentence: A child without a mother is a long story. Let's make a long story short.
Explain the status quo first:
The predecessor of Ant Financial Services is Alipay, which belongs to Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co., Ltd. .. 20 14. Ant Financial Services was established based on Alipay. The full name of Ant Financial Service is: Zhejiang Ant Microfinance Service Group Co., Ltd.
First, the two have nothing to do with the company structure.
Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co., Ltd., Ma Yun holds 80% of the shares, and Xie Shihuang, another founder of Alibaba, holds 20%. After the establishment of Ant Financial, two rounds of financing were carried out. On July 3, 20 15, the A round was announced, with a valuation of US$ 45 billion, and eight strategic investors including the National Social Security Fund, CDB Finance and large domestic insurance companies were introduced. 2065438+The second round of financing was announced on April 26th, 2006, with a valuation of $60 billion. The new strategic investors in this round of financing include investment groups led by CIC Overseas and CCB Trust (a subsidiary of China Construction Bank), while many insurance companies including China Life Insurance, China Post Group (the parent company of Postal Savings Bank), CDB Finance and Chunhua Capital continue to invest.
It can be seen that the current shareholders of Ant Financial are also complicated and have some backgrounds. But here, from beginning to end, there is nothing about Alibaba Group, and Alibaba Group has not participated in financing. This point should be clear to everyone.
Second, how can it not be important?
On June 1 day, 2009, Alipay transferred 70% of Alipay's equity to Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co., Ltd. at a price of 22.4 million US dollars (equivalent to RMB 65438+67 million). Alipay has changed from a wholly foreign-owned enterprise to a Sino-foreign joint venture. Zhejiang Alibaba electronic commerce co., ltd.
On August 6th, 20 10, Alipay transferred the remaining 30% equity to Zhejiang Alibaba at a price of 654.38+64.98 million yuan. After the transaction was completed, Zhejiang Alibaba paid 330 million yuan to take Alipay as a wholly-owned subsidiary.
Since then, Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co., Ltd. has owned Alipay 100% equity, which has nothing to do with Alibaba Group in structure.
Of course, this matter is definitely not so simple. It was very noisy around 2009. Ma Yun was once considered by the international community as a renegade and "stole" Alipay. It is also from this incident that everyone learned about the VIE architecture.
This is also an opportunity for Ma Yun to take Alipay away from Alibaba Group. At that time, Alipay had to apply to the central bank for a payment license, but the central bank stipulated that only domestic enterprises were eligible to apply for a payment license. It was not clear at that time whether the VIE architecture could be used, so Alipay dared not use the VIE architecture. Obviously, Alibaba Group is not entirely domestic, the major shareholder is Japan Softbank, and the second shareholder is Yahoo. Obviously, it is impossible for these shareholders to agree to turn Alipay into a completely domestic-funded enterprise. However, if the payment license was not obtained at that time, Alipay would be difficult to go on, so Ma privately sold Alipay to a wholly-owned subsidiary controlled by Ma Yun and another founder of Alibaba, namely Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co., Ltd., and the dispute also came from this. The major shareholder accused Ma Yun of breaking his promise.
Third, there is a relationship in income.
It is precisely because of the second point of this article that the two companies are structurally unrelated. But obviously, the two companies can't really be unrelated.
After Alipay was acquired by Ma Yun, it began to negotiate with major shareholders. From 2009 to 20 1 1 year, it's over. In business, no matter how angry you are, there is nothing you can't talk about. The result of the negotiations is:
2011On July 29th, Alibaba Group, Yahoo and Softbank formally signed the Alipay equity transfer agreement. According to the agreement, Alipay pays the intellectual property license fee and technical service fee to Alibaba Group every year, accounting for 49.9% of the pre-tax net profit of that year until Alipay goes public. When Alipay goes public, it will pay a return of 37.5% of the total market value at the time of listing (based on the IPO price), which will not be less than 2 billion US dollars and will not exceed 6 billion US dollars.
It can be seen from this agreement that although Alibaba Group and Alipay are not related in structure, they are related in economy. Before Alipay went public, it had to pay 49.9% pre-tax profit to Alibaba every year. At the same time, if it goes public, it will pay 37.5% to Alibaba Group, not less than $2 billion and not more than $6 billion. Judging from the series B financing of Ant Financial, it is obviously $6 billion, and $6 billion only accounts for 10%. After the IPO, $6 billion was less than 10%. It seems that everyone underestimated the future value of Alipay, at least Alibaba's major shareholders underestimated it.
Fourth, the value of Ant Financial Service.
Can Ant Financial become the strategic focus of Alibaba in the future? According to Peng Kun's theory, Ant Financial has become the strategic focus of Alibaba. On the issue of Ant Financial Service, Peng Kun's theory really belongs to the one who sings more. The second round of financing is valued at $60 billion. Didn't Ma Yun also make it clear that Ant Financial will be listed? Some time ago, it was rumored that Ant Financial would be 747.24 billion yuan if it went public in 20 18, and it would be 747.24 billion yuan if it was in 201043.9 billion yuan. When Alibaba first went public in 20 14, its market value was1748.28 billion US dollars, or about 1. 1 trillion RMB. I'll give you some data for reference.
In addition, Ant Financial also moves frequently. At the launch conference of Tmall Double 1 1 Hong Kong on October 20th this year, Alipay announced that it can provide services to users in more than 200 countries and regions around the world and support 18 currency settlement. This year, 220 countries and regions participated in the Double 1 1. This coverage is not small, is it?
Last year, Ant Financial became the major shareholder of Paytm in India through two investments. If I remember correctly, it accounts for 40% of the shares. It took more than a year to help it become the most impressive payment platform and the fourth largest e-wallet in the world. The number of users has also increased from 20 million last year to 65.438+0.5 billion.
On June 5438+065438+ 10/this year, Ant Financial signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Thailand's payment company Ascend Money. It is said that Ant Financial plans to acquire a 20% stake in Ascend Money. Ascend Money will refer to the business model of Ant Financial and expand application service scenarios such as offline payment and small loans. Thai users can use their mobile phones to achieve shopping, catering, taxi and business.
At the same time, Alipay cooperates with many international payment institutions, including Worldpay in the UK, Concardis and Wirecard in Germany, Ingenico in France, Recruit in Japan, ICB and KICC in South Korea, Supay in Australia, Magic Compass and IE money in New Zealand, Webmoney and Qiwi in Russia and Boleto in Brazil. Of course, there are two major payment institutions in the United States, First Data and Verifone. Relying on these partners, Alipay has covered more than 80,000 overseas offline merchants around the world.
According to Peng Kun, the value of Ant Financial will even exceed that of Alibaba Group itself in the future.