Ant Financial reached an M&A agreement with MoneyGram on June 5438+ 10 last year at a price of 880 million US dollars. However, in March, the deal was challenged by a sudden competitor Euronet Worldwide Inc, which offered a purchase price of $955 million. To this end, Ant Financial greatly increased its offer to $65.438+02 billion, and finally won the beauty.
However, the transaction still needs to be approved by US regulators. Although Ant Financial submitted several acquisition applications to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States since then, they all ended in vain. Until recently, the agency officially rejected the transaction. After the deal fell through, MoneyMoney's share price closed down 9% on Wednesday, and its market value fell to less than 700 million US dollars, far below the quoted price of 654.38+02 billion US dollars from Ant Financial.
In fact, as early as last September, some media analysts said that the Trump administration would not approve Ant Financial to acquire MoneyGram. Ant Financial's lawyers and public relations team want to portray the acquisition of MoneyMoney as something completely different from the acquisition of military-grade semiconductor technology. They may think that the friendly meeting between Ma Yun and Trump in June+10/October last year was like a blank check that could make Alibaba's dream come true, especially when Ma Yun promised to create 1 10,000 jobs in the United States. But now is not the time to cash this check.
Many Americans are beginning to worry that Alibaba's acquisition of MoneyMoney will threaten national security, whether it is true or not. For Euronet, the timing of Equifax hacking may be perfect, because it has been using national security reasons to prevent Ant Financial from buying MoneyMoney.