Ant Group’s valuation seen dropping to $108 billion on crackdown

Ant Group Co.’s valuation may be cut further under new measures proposed by China to curb market concentration in its online payments market, according to new estimates from Bloomberg Intelligence.

Jack Ma’s fintech giant may be worth less than 700 billion yuan ($108 billion) under the draft proposals, which could reduce the value of Ant’s Alipay service by half, according to senior analyst Francis Chan. Earlier this month, Chan lowered his Ant valuation to less than 1 trillion yuan, from about 1.44 trillion yuan.

“Ant Group’s valuation may plunge further if its payment unit is forced to break up due to potential anti-trust probes by China’s central bank,” Chan wrote in a research note.