Ant Group, the digital payments arm of Chinese ecommerce group Alibaba, is planning to sell its prized US asset after heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington over China’s fast-growing technology companies and tightening scrutiny over US user data.
The planned sale of EyeVerify, a biometric security firm based in Kansas, Missouri, also comes as Ant looks to raise capital ahead of potential fines and restructuring costs following its aborted IPO last year, including a proposed bond issuance that could raise up to $8bn.
Ant bought EyeVerify for about $100m in 2016, in a deal that was cleared by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius), marking its first investment in a US company.