By Julie Zhu

HONG KONG (Reuters – China’s central government has granted a preliminary green light for Jack Ma’s Ant Group, according to two sources who were familiar with the situation. The Ant Group will be able to revive its initial public offerings in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Ant, an affiliate to the Chinese ecommerce behemoth Alibaba (NYSE: Group Holding Ltd.), Group Holding Ltd., plans to file preliminary prospectus for offering in the next month. The sources declined to name the source due to sensitive subject matter.

One source said that the fintech company still has to await guidance from China Securities Regulatory Commission on when the prospectus filing should be made.

Ant stated in a statement that there is no plans to relaunch the IPO. This was after it was rushed out at Beijing’s request. At that time it was expected to be worth around $315billion and to generate $37 billion. This would have been a record in the world.

Ant stated, “Under the direction of regulators we are focused upon steadily moving forward in our rectification work. We do not plan to launch an IPO.”

Reuters reached out to them for clarification but neither the CSRC or China’s State Council Information Office (which handles media inquiries for central leaders) responded immediately.

After Ma gave a speech to Shanghai’s financial watchdogs in October 2020, Chinese authorities shut down the IPO.

The IPO’s failure marked the beginning of a regulatory crackdown in China to restrain its huge domestic technology sector. Any revival of a share sales would signal a thaw.

Bloomberg had reported on Thursday morning that Chinese financial regulators began early stage talks about the possibility of a stock market revival. However, it did not provide any details about the potential listing locations or timeline.

Bloomberg reported that the regulator established a team in order to review the plans for the sale of shares by the Fintech giant.

In a statement, the CSRC stated that it has not done any research or assessment on Ant IPOs.

After rising by as high as 7% earlier in premarket trading, the U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba Group Holdings were lower than before.

Dickie Wong is the executive director at Kingston Securities, Hong Kong. “The Chinese government must do something to stimulate economic growth.”

The IPO and Ant must be less than the 2020 plan because market conditions have changed.

U.S. shares of Chinese tech companies and ecommerce firms are up this week, despite Beijing hinting that Beijing’s long-standing crackdown might be ending. Didi Global and Alibaba both saw their share prices rise by one-third each.