Ant Group is about to give big bonuses to major and minor shareholders again, and also elected Zhang Hongjiang, foreign academician of the National Academy of Engineering, as an independent director

On September 9, according to the Beijing Business Daily, Ant Group held a shareholders' meeting recently and approved the company's profit distribution plan. According to the plan, Ant Group will distribute dividends to all shareholders, and employees holding equity incentive tools will also enjoy the corresponding economic benefits of dividends.

Ant Group said that this dividend distribution stems from the company's phased achievements in operation. In recent times, the company has focused on development, with its main business maintaining a stable trend and its innovative business achieving accelerated breakthroughs. Based on its confidence in future development and its emphasis on shareholders and employees, the company formulated this profit distribution plan after comprehensively considering reasonable returns for shareholders, sustainable business capabilities, and continuous investment for the future. Dividends will not affect future investment, and Ant Group will continue to invest heavily in strategic directions such as AI

Ant Group also distributed dividends twice in March and December 2022. Based on Alibaba Group's 33% shareholding, Ant Group's first two dividends totaled approximately RMB 11.95 billion and RMB 31.87 billion, with cumulative dividends exceeding RMB 43.8 billion.

Analysts pointed out that both dividends and buybacks are ways for companies to create returns for shareholders. Ant Group's series of dividends and buybacks in the past three years reflect that its operating and financial conditions are relatively healthy and can continue to create returns for shareholders.

In addition to dividends, Ant Group is constantly adjusting its corporate structure. In January last year, Ant Group announced that in order to continuously improve corporate governance and achieve long-term sustainable development, the group plans to take a series of upgrade measures at the board and shareholder levels, including introducing more independent directors, adjusting the voting rights structure of major shareholders, and promoting more transparent and decentralized shareholder voting rights, etc.

At this shareholders' meeting, Ant Group also approved the proposal to supplement independent directors to the board. Dr. Zhang Hongjiang, an AI scholar, founder of Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, and foreign academician of the National Academy of Engineering, was nominated as an independent director of Ant Group. The number of members of Ant Group's board of directors will increase from 8 to 9, with more than half being independent directors.

Public information shows that Dr. Zhang Hongjiang is an internationally renowned AI scholar who has made pioneering contributions in the field of multimedia computing and AI, especially in research on video and image content analysis. He holds more than 180 international patents, has published 4 academic monographs and more than 400 academic papers, and is one of the scientists with the highest impact factor in the field of computer science in the world.

In recent years, Ant Group has taken a series of measures to improve its corporate governance system and strengthen the diversification and transparency of governance. For example, members of the management of Ant Group no longer serve as Alibaba partners, strengthening the separation from shareholder Alibaba Group. In the board of directors, the proportion of independent directors has exceeded half, and six special committees have been established, including the Risk Management and Consumer Rights Protection Committee and the ESG Sustainable Development Committee.