SINGAPORE’S sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte plans to invest more than US$1 billion in Ant Group’s mega initial public offering (IPO) as early investors look for a bigger slice of the Chinese payments behemoth, according to people familiar with the matter.

GIC and Singaporean state investor Temasek Holdings Pte are considering participating in both the Hong Kong and Shanghai legs of the listing, which could together raise as much as US$35 billion, the people said. China’s US$318 billion National Council for Social Security Fund plans to purchase shares in the mainland sale, they added.

Jack Ma’s Ant is poised to list as early as this month in Hong Kong and on the tech-focused STAR board in what could be the world’s biggest IPO, topping Saudi Aramco’s record sale.

Interest in the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. affiliate prompted it to increase its IPO target based on a valuation of about US$250 billion, up from previous estimates of US$225 billion, people familiar have said. At that market capitalization it would be bigger than Bank of America Corp. (SD-Agencies)