Alibaba’s Ant Financial Bid Crawls Up

The affiliate company of the Chinese Alibaba Group, Ant Financial Services Group (also known as Alipay), has finally decided to raise its bid to acquire MoneyGram. Truly determined to win against a rival and continue to be on the lead, it boosted its bid to about $1.2 billion. 

The e-commerce titan, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., is actually considering expanding overseas and had signed a deal with MoneyGram back in January, closing it for $880 million. Yet, in March a competing offer of about $933 million surfaced. 

Euronet Worldwide Inc. (which is into payment processing, too) also revealed its intention of taking over MoneyGram. Given that Euronet is based in the U.S. and MoneyGram with the possibility of being taken over by a Chinese company mooted a number of concerns particularly with security. Ant Financial shrugged off the issues and on Sunday, subsequent to Euronet’s offer, Ant increased its bid from $13.25 to $18 per share. On top of the offer, Ant guaranteed to pay for MoneyGram’s debt. The latter’s board unanimously approved the increase in offer by means of voting. 

Further, Ant Financial has started dealing with the regulatory approvals necessary to finalize the whole transaction. It is now just waiting for approval from the U.S Committee on Foreign Investment. Euronet, with fingers crossed, is hoping that the deal gets negated. 

Moreover, Jack Ma (founder and CEO of Alibaba) had already set the ground in meeting U.S. President Donald Trump, who would have the final say over the proposal. Nevertheless, Jack Ma pledges to create jobs in the United States. 

Even the President of Ant Financial International, Doug Feagin, mentioned that “Over the past few months, we have enjoyed working closely with the MoneyGram team and remain committed to our plans to invest further in the MoneyGram business. We plan to grow the U.S.-based team and create even greater opportunities for the MoneyGram community as we pursue our shared vision of global inclusive finance in an increasingly digital era.”

Both parties are looking forward to completing the deal in the second half of the year. MoneyGram is set for a special stockholder meeting this May 16. 

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