Line delays setting IPO price range

TOKYO • Line Corp, Japan's most popular messaging service, plans to delay the setting of a price range for its initial public offering after Britain's vote to exit the European Union sent global markets into turmoil.

The company will proceed with pricing today, it said in a statement after the market closed.

It has said it is seeking to raise as much as 113 billion yen (S$1.5 billion) from the sale of new and existing shares, which would make it the largest IPO by a technology company this year.

Line is raising funds to meet increasing challenges from Facebook's Messenger and WhatsApp, and from China's WeChat.

It is looking to expand its 218-million user base beyond its strongest markets of Japan, Taiwan and Thailand.

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Alipay owner 'ends record $6b round'

BEIJING • Alibaba Group's finance affiliate has completed a record US$4.5 billion (S$6 billion) equity fundraising round, according to two people familiar with the matter.

It is the technology industry's largest private fundraising, they said, requesting not to be named because the matter is private.

Other people have said that Ant Financial, as the company is known, had aimed for at least US$3.5 billion at a valuation of US$60 billion and is considering an initial public offering on the Shanghai stock exchange as early as this year.

The company runs China's biggest online payment service, Alipay, and controls the company that manages Yu'E Bao, the nation's largest money-market fund.

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