China's Ant Group refinancing $6.5 billion credit line

(Reuters) -China's Ant Group is refinancing its $6.5 billion credit line, a company spokesperson said on Thursday, as the fintech giant backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma looks to bolster its overseas operations.

The refinancing was for an existing syndicated bank credit line from 2019, the spokesperson added.

The company plans to allocate $1.5 billion of the borrowing quota for its overseas arm Ant International, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Bloomberg reported the development earlier on Thursday.

Ant Group, which operates China's ubiquitous mobile payment app Alipay, reshuffled its organizational structure in March, setting up individual boards for some of its units to allow them to operate more independently, Reuters had reported.

In August, the company showed a roughly 10% drop in quarterly net profit to 12 billion yuan ($1.69 billion), based on Reuters calculations.

($1 = 7.1186 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru and Casey Hall in Shanghai, Editing by Anil D'Silva)