After the authorities surprisingly canceled the IPO of Alibaba's financial subsidiary Ant Group, the group is threatened with further cuts. According to reports, Beijing wants Alibaba to drastically scale back its media holdings. The independence of the South China Morning Post is in danger.
By Redaktion Table
With its crackdown on entrepreneur Jack Ma and his Alibaba empire, the Chinese state is warning all entrepreneurs not to be too brash. In the long term, the country could pay a high price for it.
By Marcel Grzanna
Jack Ma is the co-founder of the Alibaba platform and one of the richest people in the People's Republic of China. All news about Crazy Jack Ma are available from the Table.Media editorial team.
Jack Ma is one of the most famous billionaires in China. His extroverted nature earned him the nickname Crazy Jack Ma. That's how he loves to be on stage. In 2009, he dressed up as Elton John at a company party and sang the theme song from The Lion King in front of around 16,000 employees. At Alibaba's 2017 annual party, he performed as Michael Jackson and roared around the stage on a motorcycle. The general public could also admire him as a judge in a casting show for young entrepreneurs. At least until the end of 2020, when he criticized the government and shortly thereafter largely withdrew from the public eye. He also lost his place on television.
Jack Ma became rich by founding the Alibaba Group. Together with 17 friends, he had founded the company in October 1999 as a B2B marketplace. This was followed by its expansion into a trading platform for everyone. When Alibaba then went public in September 2014, the company raised $21.8 billion. More than Google, Facebook and Twitter combined. By 2021, Forbes estimates Jack Ma's fortune at around $48.4 billion. That would make him the fourth richest Chinese. In the list of the world's richest people, this puts him in 26th place. In 2020, the Alibaba Group generated a profit of $21.1 billion. With a stock market value of well over half a trillion dollars, Jack Ma's company is one of the ten most valuable companies in the world.
Jack Ma was born in Hangzhou in 1964. He tried to learn English at an early age. To do this, he visited a hotel every day to talk to tourists and guide them around the city. During his studies he met his future wife Zhang Ying. In 1988, he graduated with a degree in English and became a lecturer in English and international trade. This was followed by a second degree at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. Jack Ma has been married to Zhang Ying, who is also known as Cathy Zhang, since 1988. After graduation, Zhang also initially worked as a teacher before joining her husband's companies. Little is known about their personal life. They have three children. A son was born in 1992 and is named Ma Yuankun (also Jerry Ma). A daughter is named Ma Yuanbao. The third child has not appeared in public so far.
Alibaba has made Jack Ma a billionaire. But four years earlier, the entrepreneur had already founded the China Pages portal. He used all his savings for it and asked relatives for money. China Pages was a business directory for the Internet. However, the site flopped. Then, in 1999, Jack Ma founded Alibaba with 17 friends and a combined seed money of $60,000. The name was actually taken from the fairy tale "Thousand and One Nights". Jack Ma chose it because he randomly approached thirty people on the street in the USA and everyone knew the name.
Shortly after Alibaba was founded, the company received a $20 million injection of capital from investors. In 2005, Yahoo took a $1 billion stake in the tech giant from China. It was around this time that Jack Ma offered various other services under the Alibaba umbrella. Alibaba was originally intended as a B2B platform, but quickly expanded its services to private customers and merchants. Quite early on, there was also an online auction house in the style of Ebay under the name Taobao. However, the biggest coup so far was the payment service Alipay, which was intertwined with the newly founded Ant Group in 2014. Under this name, the Alibaba subsidiary offers various financial services such as microloans via app. With a company value of 150 to 200 billion dollars, it is the most valuable start-up in the world.
Daniel Zhang is the chief executive officer of Alibaba Group. He worked his way up through posts at Taobao and Tmall. Singles Day can also be traced back to him. A day when singles are called to shop on Alibaba. More products are sold during these 24 hours than during the American originals Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined. Daniel Zhang is considered rather low-key compared to Crazy Jack Ma. Back in 2015, Jack Ma made him CEO. Probably also to reassure the Chinese government. In 2019, Daniel Zhang additionally took over the chairmanship of the Alibaba Group.
In the fall of 2020, Jack Ma complained about the way the Chinese financial market regulator was working. This had a "pawnshop mentality". The banking regulator then canceled Ant Group's IPO. Experts had expected it to raise $37 billion. It would have been a record. Jack Ma is also said to be divesting shares in Ant Group. In favor of an investor close to the state. In addition, there was a fine from the Chinese antitrust authority. Alibaba had to pay 2.3 billion dollars. Industry insiders believe that the government in Beijing wanted to make an example of Jack Ma in order to warn other entrepreneurs. The China.Table editorial team reports on what happens next with Jack Ma and Alibaba.
