After the 'war' with Beijing, Jack Ma, the head of Alibaba, leaves the company

2023-01-08 15:24:05Biznes SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
After the 'war' with Beijing, Jack Ma, the head of Alibaba, leaves the
Jack Ma

The founder of Ant Group, Chinese businessman Jack Ma, will step down from the tech giant he created, in a move against regulatory action in China that disrupted the company's debut on the Asian stock market.

Ant's $37bn initial public offering would have been the world's largest but was called off at the last minute in November 2020, leading to a forced restructuring of the financial technology firm and speculation that the Chinese billionaire would to have to relinquish control.

Ma, a former English teacher, owned more than 50% of Ant's voting rights, but is now down to just 6.2%. Ma was exclusively run by Alibaba Group, the world's online sales giant.

The expected fine is part of Beijing's strategy to wipe out and damage China's tech titans by taking billions of dollars from them and shrinking their profits.

However, recently the Chinese government seems to have softened the tone a bit, as its economy has been severely damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ant also owns the online payment service, Alipay, the largest in the world, with over 1 billion users.

After Ma's departure, Ant is expected to have a board of directors and not just one with great power over the company.

Since the 2020 event, Ma has stayed away from the public media./ CNBC


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