Is Jack Ma going to create another "Ant"?
Author | Wang Hanyu
Editor | Zhang Fan
Abstract: After nearly three years of inactivity, the share price of Yunfeng Financial has risen by over 115%.
Yunfeng Financial is accelerating its pace of actions within the Web3 ecosystem.
On September 17th, its wholly-owned subsidiary issued a single RWA (Real-World Asset Tokenization), with the physical asset being FOF (Fund of Funds) shares. It is worth noting that this is the first RWA project independently completed by Yunfeng Financial with the support of its blockchain technology team.
If previous actions such as investing in the Pharos public chain, upgrading the securities trading license, and "hoarding coins" were only seen as signals of strategic reserves, Yunfeng Financial's direct involvement in operating RWA clearly reflects the trend of integrating its Web3 layout with traditional business.
On July 15th this year, Yunfeng Financial's official WeChat account, which had been silent for nearly three years, spoke up again. The first announcement declared that based on its existing insurance and fintech businesses, it will strategically layout in the fields of Web3, RWA, digital currency, ESG zero-carbon assets, and AI, and explore innovations connecting these fields with various application scenarios of its insurance company.
Subsequently, the company has been active in the Web3 field. Meanwhile, Yunfeng Financial's share price has been soaring in the capital market. According to Wind data, since the official announcement of the strategy on July 15th, as of September 19th, Yunfeng Financial's share price has cumulatively increased by 115.66%.
Yunfeng Financial's range increase. Source: Wind
Doubling down on Web3, will Jack Ma create another "Ant"?
Since entering September, Yunfeng Financial has been making official announcements more frequently.
On September 1st, it officially announced a strategic cooperation agreement with Ant Digital Technology and a strategic investment in the Pharos public chain.
On September 2nd, Yunfeng Financial announced that it had cumulatively purchased 10,000 Ether (ETH) in the open market as reserve assets, with a total investment cost of $44 million.
On September 5th, Yunfeng Financial appointed Liang Xinjun, the co-founder of Fosun Group, as an independent non-executive director. The latter has rich investment experience in the fields of Web3 blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse.
On September 9th, Yunfeng Securities, a subsidiary of Yunfeng Financial, was approved to upgrade its existing securities trading license (Type 1 license) to provide virtual asset trading services.
On September 16th, Yunfeng Financial completed the placement of 191 million shares, raising HK$1.17 billion. Part of the funds will be used to launch comprehensive virtual asset trading services and related investment management services.
On September 17th, its first independently completed financial asset RWA was finally issued.
Wind data shows that the largest shareholder of Yunfeng Financial is Jade Passion Limited, holding 48.41% of the shares. Through a multi-layered holding structure, Yu Feng actually controls 47.25% of Yunfeng Financial's shares. Meanwhile, Huang Xin, the executive director and acting CEO of Yunfeng Financial, and Jack Ma hold 60% and 40% of the shares of Shanghai Yunfeng Investment Management Co., Ltd. respectively.
That is to say, although Jack Ma is not among the directors publicly disclosed by Yunfeng Financial, their relationship is very close.
Members of Yunfeng Financial's board of directors. Source: The company's 2024 annual report
For this reason, Jack Ma has always been regarded as one of the decision-makers of Yunfeng Financial in the market. Currently, as the latter accelerates its layout in the fields of virtual currency and RWA, the market is speculating whether Yunfeng Financial will become another virtual asset platform created by Jack Ma in the Web3 era, just as Ant Group is to Alibaba?
Previously, Alipay, the predecessor of Ant Group, grew out of Alibaba's e-commerce ecosystem to solve the trust and payment pain points in Taobao transactions. By providing infrastructure services such as payment, guarantee, and settlement for a large number of merchants and users in the e-commerce platform, Alipay accumulated a large amount of transaction data and user base within Alibaba's closed-loop ecosystem. Based on this, it extended credit services such as Huabei and Jiebei, as well as fintech services, gradually growing into an independent fintech giant.
Currently, Yunfeng Financial is not only doubling down on the strategic reserve of virtual assets but also collaborating with "Ant-related" companies such as Ant Digital Technology. Its growth path seems to be gradually showing similarities with that of Ant Group.
Up over 100% in a month, an "Ant concept stock"?
With Yunfeng Financial's frequent official announcements, the slope of its share price increase has become steeper, with a 101.03% increase in September.
Actually, in recent months, H-shares have been showing a trend of "rising as soon as they are related to coins".
For example, on June 24th, Guotai Junan International was approved by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission to upgrade its securities trading license to provide virtual asset trading services. The next day, its share price skyrocketed by 198%. On July 15th, China Sansan Media announced the preparation work for applying for a stablecoin license. On July 16th, its shares closed up 71.88%, with a cumulative increase of 1800% this year. In addition, 10 Hong Kong-listed stablecoin concept stocks, including Yiu Fai Securities and Financial Group and Yunfeng Financial, have also had cumulative increases of over 100% this year.
This is mainly due to the positive change in Hong Kong's virtual asset regulatory policy. On May 21st, the Hong Kong Legislative Council passed the "Stablecoin Bill", which laid the foundation for industry compliance and instantly ignited the sentiment in the capital market, making related stocks highly sought after.
In addition to riding on the overall "stablecoin market" in the market, when examining each round of Yunfeng Financial's share price increases, they usually coincide with new progress made by Ant Group in the virtual asset field.
On April 25th, news spread that a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ant Group was acquiring Yiu Fai Securities. The next trading day, Yunfeng Financial's share price soared by over 50%. In June, when news spread that Ant Group was applying for a stablecoin license, Yunfeng Financial's share price rose again. At the beginning of September, when Yunfeng Financial officially reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Ant Digital Technology, its share price started to rise rapidly again.
As both are regarded as members of the Alibaba ecosystem, the strategic cooperation and business collaboration have strengthened the market's confidence in Yunfeng Financial's Web3 ecosystem layout. Based on these intricate background connections, Yunfeng Financial is regarded by some as an "Ant concept stock" in the Hong Kong stock market.
So why does the capital market favor "Ant concept stocks" and give them a doubling increase in less than a month?
On the one hand, after the implementation of the Hong Kong stablecoin bill, the market prospects have gradually opened up. Yunfeng Financial has the advantage of holding all of Hong Kong's Type 1, 4, 6, and 9 licenses. It can legally hold virtual assets such as Ethereum and explore on-chain funds, on-chain payments, tokenized insurance, and other businesses in Hong Kong in a compliant manner.
Currently, the integration of virtual assets and traditional finance is accelerating globally, and RWA shows great development potential. A compliant trading platform is the bridge connecting traditional finance and digital assets. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, where Yunfeng Financial conducts its main business, its positioning as an international financial center gives it a natural advantage in developing virtual asset trading.
On the other hand, by controlling Manulife (International) Limited, Yunfeng Financial has an advantage in tokenizing assets such as insurance policies and fund income rights. These assets are naturally suitable for on-chain processing, which can improve asset liquidity and optimize the claims settlement process, opening up new growth space for traditional insurance business and generating synergies with asset management, securities, and other sectors.
Finance + technology collaboration, returning to basic services
Compared with the functional significance of improving asset liquidity, the symbolic meaning of the RWA issued by Yunfeng Financial recently is more obvious. This means that it has the ability to independently support the tokenization of real assets. For the insurance business, which currently serves as the main engine of performance, RWA brings greater imagination space to the market.
The mid-year performance report for 2025 shows that Yunfeng Financial achieved insurance revenue of HK$1.532 billion in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 11%. The net profit attributable to equity shareholders was HK$486 million, with a year-on-year growth rate of 142%.
Among them, the annualized premium for new business was HK$2.222 billion, a year-on-year increase of 107%. The new business value was HK$610 million, a year-on-year increase of 81%. The net operating profit of Manulife (International) Limited, its subsidiary, reached HK$686 million, a year-on-year increase of 21%.
This shows that Yunfeng Financial holds a large amount of insurance assets such as insurance policies. RWA tokenizes these assets, revitalizing the existing assets, transforming static assets into tradable digital assets, improving asset liquidity, and enabling insurance companies to obtain lower-cost funds in the global DeFi market and broaden their financing channels.
Furthermore, the application of smart contracts automates processes such as income distribution and token transfer, reducing operating costs and human errors. At the same time, the non-tamperable and traceable characteristics of the blockchain enhance asset transparency. Traditional insurance business is expected to open up new sources of income such as service fees and management fees, thereby enhancing future profit expectations.
In addition to the visible "finance + technology" business collaboration at present, Yunfeng Financial's more important layout in the Web3 field may still be at the infrastructure level.
Back in 2017, during the first wave of popularity of Bitcoin and blockchain, Jack Ma once said, "I'm not very interested in Bitcoin. What I want to know is what Bitcoin can bring to society?" Later, when referring to blockchain, he also mentioned, "Blockchain cannot and should not be used for getting rich overnight. Blockchain must solve social problems."
Combined with a series of recent actions such as investing in public chains and upgrading trading licenses, it can be seen that Jack Ma's thinking about blockchain layout, similar to Alibaba's mission of "making it easy to do business anywhere in the world", mainly focuses on building infrastructure.
Currently, the labels associated with digital currency and blockchain technology are gradually shifting from "getting rich overnight" to "industrial empowerment". This shift not only makes the technology return to the essence of the industry but also presents a new form of ecological collaboration. When the infrastructure is further improved, it is imaginable that the underlying platforms built by participants such as Yunfeng Financial, by attracting traditional assets to flow and trade on the chain, may form an ecosystem similar to a "Web3 version of Taobao".
However, for Yunfeng Financial itself, the price of crypto assets is still fluctuating. It has said that after purchasing ETH, it will buy more digital assets as reserve assets, which may also lead to fluctuations in the company's asset value and thus affect investors' returns.
*Disclaimer:
The content of this article only represents the author's views.
The market is risky, and investment should be cautious. Under no circumstances do the information in this article or the opinions expressed constitute investment advice to anyone. Before making an investment decision, if necessary, investors must consult professionals and make decisions carefully. We have no intention of providing underwriting services or any services that require specific qualifications or licenses to engage in for the trading parties.
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