BeijingJack Ma, the unconventional billionaire founder of tech giant Alibaba and the totem of Chinese entrepreneurship, has fallen out of the limelight since the Communist Party’s crackdown that shredded his empire.
Ma Yun, the most famous figure in the Asian business world, saw his fortune dwindle by almost half to an estimated $25 billion after authorities withdrew what was then the world’s largest IPO in 2020. I came.
Chinese regulators canceled plans to list Ma’s Ant Group in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and the following year Alibaba was fined a record $2.75 billion for alleged misconduct.
The restructuring of Ant’s holding structure will see Ma ceding control of the fintech giant he founded in 2014.
The company said in a statement on Saturday that he would hold just 6.2% of the voting power to ensure that “the shareholders do not control Ant Group either singly or jointly with other parties.” rice field.
This is the latest humility of China’s former corporate poster boy.
A former Communist Party member, Ma’s background has come to represent a confident generation of Chinese entrepreneurs ready to shake the world.
Charismatic, petite and quick-talking, Ma was working as an underfunded English teacher when someone showed him the Internet on a trip to the United States in the 1990s. he went crazy.
After toying with a few Internet-related projects, he persuaded a group of friends to give him $60,000 to start a new business in China in 1999, the then-still-economy giant. I was standing out as.
Alibaba is the result, an e-commerce giant founded from his bedroom in the eastern city of Hangzhou, which launched the online shopping revolution and has grown into a fintech giant.
The company has transformed the shopping habits of hundreds of millions of Chinese people and made Ma an international star.
“The first time I used the Internet, I touched the keyboard and realized, ‘This is what I believe, and it will change the world and China.
In 2014, Alibaba went public in New York with a world-record $25 billion sale.
Ant is still the world’s largest digital payment platform, with hundreds of millions of monthly users on its Alipay app.
But a future listing appears to be a long way off, as concerns persist that the company’s personal financial products are getting too deep into the pockets of ordinary Chinese people.
crossed the line?
Ma has long enjoyed the image of a benevolent, unconventional billionaire.
Sometimes called “Father Ma” in China, he was praised for being self-deprecating. He said he was rejected “10 times” by Harvard.
He has also been known to spice up company events with songs and dances by Lady Gaga, Snow White, Michael Jackson, and more.
As his fortune grew, Ma was rebranded as a philanthropist, retiring from the business in 2019 to focus on giving.
But he has faced his share of hardships over the years in a country where getting rich risks attracting the attention of those in power.
He frowned when the state-run People’s Daily revealed that he was a member of the Communist Party.
He previously told the World Economic Forum in 2007, “My philosophy is to fall in love with the government, but never marry the government.
Days before Ant’s IPO was dropped, the swaggering Ma launched a bitter public attack on Chinese regulators, accusing them of stifling growth.
He’s not so outspoken these days, rarely making headlines except for appearances at charity events and occasional trips abroad. -AFPMore
