Faced with employee discontent, the Ant Group Co. leader said that the Chinese financial technology giant would eventually go public and that the company would look for ways to help employees monetize some of their shares.
In a lengthy post on Ant’s internal website, Executive Chairman Eric Jing said the company’s management is reviewing its compensation and incentive policies and is working on a “ short-term liquidity solution ” for employees to take effect in April, according to people who his message. Mr. Jing responded to an employee who asked about Ant’s future and how the company plans to retain talent.
The liquidity solution Ant is working on will likely be a program to buy back some of the employees’ shares, according to people close to the company. April is typically the month in which Ant grants discretionary annual bonuses to employees.
Employee morale at Ant has been low since Chinese regulators forced the company to halt its blockbuster IPOs in Hong Kong and Shanghai in early November.
Many of Ant’s more than 16,000 employees had received stock-based compensation, and they were about to reap a windfall from Ant’s stock exchange listing, which valued the company at more than $ 300 billion last fall. That meant a doubling of Ant’s valuation from mid-2018, when the latest round of private fundraising valued the company at $ 150 billion.