Alibaba's Ant Group files for record-breaking IPO

Alibaba has plans for another blockbuster IPO.

Its financial technology arm, Ant Group, has filed for a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

It’s thought the sale could raise as much as 30 billion dollars - making it the world’s largest-ever IPO.

Ant is the firm behind Alipay - the biggest player in China’s 62-trillion dollar mobile payments market.

It is already China’s most valuable ‘unicorn’ - that’s an unlisted firm valued at more than a billion dollars.

Now its IPO could beat the record 29.4 billion dollars raised last December by oil giant Saudi Aramco.

Before that the record was held by Alibaba Group itself, with its 25 billion dollar listing in 2014.

Ant hasn’t confirmed any details of its proposed deal.

But sources say it aims to sell up to 15% of its shares.

The company was valued at about 150 billion dollars the last time it raised money from investors.

Ant plans to use proceeds from the IPO to expand its user base and cross-border payments.

In a prospectus, it said it had revenues of 10.5 billion dollars in the first half of the year - up almost 40 percent on 2019.