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Ant Group buys land to expand HQ as fintech firm and Alipay operator emerges from shadow of China’s tech crackdown

  • The affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding pays 1.54 billion yuan (US$210.5 million) for a parcel for new office buildings in Hangzhou
  • Move is a ‘clear sign’ that Ant is ‘back on its growth track’, a property investor says, after the company got hit with a 7 billion yuan fine in July

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Employees walk through the lobby of Ant Group headquarters in Hangzhou, China, on October 29, 2020. Photo: Reuters
Daniel Renin Shanghai
Financial technology giant Ant Group has bought a land parcel near its headquarters in Hangzhou, showing that the company is entering a growth phase now that the dust from a two-year crackdown on the technology sector has settled, according to analysts.
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The company, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding paid 1.54 billion yuan (US$210.5 million), or 11,344 yuan per square metre, for the land, which can accommodate 135,000 square metres of gross floor area, according to records on the website of Hangzhou’s city planning and natural resources bureau. Alibaba owns the Post.
The parcel, located in West Lake District, will be used to build new office buildings as Ant, one of the world’s largest fintech companies and the operator of the Alipay mobile-payment service, seeks to regain its growth momentum after it was handed a financial penalty of 7.123 billion yuan in July.

Two people with knowledge of the land purchase deal told the Post that new office space will be added to the existing headquarters amid an increasing number of employees in Hangzhou, the capital of China’s eastern Zhejiang province which is also home to Alibaba’s headquarters. The local government said earlier that total investment on the land parcel would amount to 5 billion yuan.

Ant Group established its headquarters after buying a plot of land in Hanghou in October 2020. Photo: Shutterstock
Ant Group established its headquarters after buying a plot of land in Hanghou in October 2020. Photo: Shutterstock

Ant did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comment on Friday.

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Ant paid 2.7 billion yuan, or 5,194 yuan per square metre, in October 2020 for the parcel where its headquarters now stands, which offers 519,000 square metres of gross floor area. The company shelled out another 1.3 billion yuan in August 2021 for a site that can yield a total gross floor area of 325,795 square metres, as a way of expanding the headquarters.

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