Ant Financial Executive Shrugs Off Rival MoneyGram Bid

Ant Financial Services Group, the payment affiliate of Alibaba, isn’t worried about a rival bid for MoneyGram International, with a top executive telling Reuters he’s confident the deal will close.

Douglas Feagin, head of Ant’s international strategy, told Reuters Friday (March 17) Ant Financial likes MoneyGram because it provides the company with a “global network of remittance capability and kind of an omnichannel approach.” The executive said Ant is looking forward to closing the $880 million deal, reported Reuters.

Ant’s acquisition of MoneyGram does face a rival bid. Euronet Worldwide made a$1 billion offer for MoneyGram earlier this week surprising everybody, raising the prospects of a bidding war. It thinks it has an edge over Ant because an all-American transaction won’t face as much scrutiny as an international one, reported Reuters. Previously Ant said the deal was moving ahead and was on schedule to receive all the regulatory requirements and shareholders approvals. MoneyGram, for its part, hasn’t made a decision if it will back Euronet’s higher bid, reported Reuters.

For Ant Financial, the acquisition of MoneyGram is a major move to expand internationally as it gears up for an initial public offering. Ant Financial is valued at $60 billion. The Ant executive declined to say if Ant would up its bid for MoneyGram but said MoneyGram is a key part of its expansion.

“Today with our wallets, you can transfer money in a country quite easily, and we want to enable that more broadly around the world. That’s what MoneyGram would help us to do,” said Feagin.