Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's finance arm plans to use a partnership structure to allow top management to maintain control of the company's board after an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

The partners in Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co will nominate a majority of directors in a structure similar to that used by Alibaba when it went public last year, said the people, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The finance business was valued at more than $40 billion in a recent round of fundraising, another person said.

Ant Financial owns Alipay, China's biggest online payment system, and also operates a bank, a money-market fund with 579 billion yuan ($93.4 billion) of assets and a credit-scoring service. The finance business, controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, could hold an initial share sale as early as 2016, people familiar with the matter said in January.