China's President Xi Jinping personally chose to pull the plug on Ant Group's US$37 billion (S$49.9 billion) initial public offering (IPO), the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing Chinese officials with knowledge of the matter.
The decision to stop what would have been the world's largest ever IPO came days after the fintech giant's billionaire founder Jack Ma launched a public attack on the country's financial watchdogs and banks.
President Xi ordered Chinese regulators to investigate and effectively shut down Ant's stock market flotation, the report published on Thursday said.
Ant Group did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.
The Information Office of the State Council, China's Cabinet, could not be reached immediately for comment.
Mr Ma had told a summit in Shanghai on Oct 24 that the regulatory system was stifling innovation and must be reformed to fuel growth.
Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the speech had set off a chain of events that torpedoed the listing of Ant.
Soon after Mr Ma's scathing speech, state regulators started compiling reports, including one on how Ant had used digital financial products like Huabei, a virtual credit card service, to encourage poor and young people to build up debt.
The general office of the State Council compiled a report on public sentiment about Mr Ma's speech and submitted it to senior leaders, including President Xi, Reuters reported.
While Mr Xi's government has been steadily tightening its grip on the world's second-largest economy, it's until recently taken a relatively hands-off approach towards businesses that dominate China's burgeoning Internet, e-commerce and digital finance industries.
Beijing on Tuesday unveiled regulations to root out monopolistic practices in the Internet industry, seeking to curtail the growing influence of corporations like Alibaba Group Holdingwhich was co-founded by Mr Maand Tencent Holdings.
"There seems to be a broader China government sentiment that Internet platforms are becoming too powerful," said Mr Hoi Tak Leung, a Hong Kong-based lawyer specialising in Chinese Internet companies at Ashurst.
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
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