US-Listed Chinese Shares See Best Ever Year Start as Ant's Plan to Expand Fi...

BEIJING, January 4 (TMTPOST)— Chinese shares listed in the United States saw their best ever performance in the first two trading days of a year, driven by a positive signal from Alibaba’s unit Ant Group, a fintech giant whose IPO was forced to suspend two years ago.

Source: Visual China

The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index, which tracks 65 China-exposed U.S.-listed firms, settled around 8.6% higher on Wednesday to the highest since August, 2022. With the biggest daily rally since late November, the index notched nearly 13% of gains in the first two trading days of 2023, the best ever performance for the beginning of a year according data that Bloomberg compiled back to 2001.

A number of Chinese shares outperformed outstandingly Wednesday. The American depositary receipts (ADRs) of Alibaba Group, the most valuable Chinese firm listed in U.S., jumped 13%, the biggest daily gain since June, and shares of its e-commerce peers Pinduoduo and JD.com up 7.7% and 14.6% respectively. Baidu and Bilibli, two components of Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index, surged 10.6% and 4.9% respectively. Two prominent Tesla’s Chinese rivals NIO and Xpeng each rose more than 10%.

The local regulator has approved an Ant Group’s consumer finance unit located in Chongqing city to raise registered capital by RMB105 billion (US$1.5 billion), an increase of about 131%, according to a notice released at the official site of the Chongqing division of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission earlier Wednesday. The unit, founded in June, 2021, was also allowed to introduce three equity investors including state-owned Hangzhou Finance and Investment Group, Sunny Optical Technology (Group) Co. Ltd, one of Apple’s major suppliers, and a logistics and financial services firm Transfar Zhilian Co., Ltd.

Once the investment completed, Ant will still hold a 50% stake in its unit in Chongqing while Hangzhou Finance and Investment Group, owned by the city of Hangzhou, will own 10% of shares and become the largest shareholder next to Ant.

The approval of capital plan that set to expand consumer finance business was deemed as a positive start of steps that Ant required to go through with its restructuring process. Ant was asked by Chinese regulators to restructure its operations on credit, insurance and wealth management and comply with regulatory requirements, after its highly anticipated record-breaking listings in Shanghai and Hong Kong was abruptly halted in November, 2020.