Ant Financial Services Group (AFSG), the online financial services affiliate of Jack Ma's Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group, remains at the center of a hectic week, as events have unfolded rapidly in relation to negotiations over an asset-management deal that dates back to 2013.
While the Shanghai Daily news outlet announced on Tuesday that AFSG had finalized an arrangement with Inner Mongolia Junzheng, a shareholder of Tianhong Asset Management Co., a Wednesday article in the Asia Asset Management journal offers another update.
The Shanghai Daily piece confirmed that the deal with the Tianhong shareholder was reached in regard to retained profit. That is, Junzheng agreed in a stock exchange statement that the retaining profit of Tianhong Fund would be distributed "only among the old shareholders before Junzheng made a further capital contribution in January 2014."
That reconciliation was in the "best interest." This was a progression from its previous claim, in which it sought to distribute the profit before its capital contribution and the interjection of the Alibaba affiliate.
However, on the following day, the asset-management publication reported that the Alibaba affiliate had since chosen to finalize an arrangement with Shanghai-based Tebon Fund Management (Tebon FM) for a 30-percent stake in Tebon.
Market sources were cited to report that AFSG's shareholding in Tebon could actually rise as high as 60 percent, while a Shanghai Securities analyst told the journal that AFSG "might pull back" from Tianhong. The journal then conveys that the relationship has "soured" between AFSG and Tianhong "since Alibaba's financial affiliate . . . commenced arbitration proceedings against Inner Mongolia Junzheng."
According to China Daily, if the relationship had not soured, AFSG would own 51 percent of Tianhong, while Junzheng's stake would have decreased from 36 percent to 15.6 percent.
Only time can tell what the actual outcome of this long-running saga will be.