[ad_1]
The Chinese tech empire gained weight
Jack founded his first business today in 1994, and the Alibaba idea became a reality in 1999.
In 20 years, the company has become the second largest and third highest e-commerce platform in the world.
Originally, the Internet company functioned as a B2B (that is, corporate) marketplace, then as the company expanded, they embarked on a whole new set of business activities.
Just to name a few of the companies and platforms that came out of Alibaba:
- In 2009 a business was launched in the cloud and in 2014 it is already Alibaba cloud has become the largest cloud services company in China.
- Started in 2010 Ali express, a commercial version of Alibaba. Shortly after its launch, the platform became the most popular e-commerce website in countries like Russia, leaving eBay behind, for example.
- In 2014, it began Ant Financial, the financial arm of Alibaba, then soon parted ways with its parent company, then took the name Ant Group. The tech company operates one of China’s largest mobile payment providers, Alipay, one of the world’s largest money market funds. Thu Baótand a host of other financial services, such as asset management, loans, and remittances. The Ant Group is valued at $ 313 billion, so they have a larger market capitalization than most major US banks.
- They also launched their own music business, media provider, mutual fund manager, equity fund manager, software developer, and bought one of Hong Kong’s best-known news agencies, the South China Morning Post.
So Jack Ma’s business empire already goes way beyond e-commerce: It also has great influence on China’s media market, financial market and technology sector.
And thanks to the growth, Jack Ma’s wealth has also grown enormously:
The businessman has become the richest man in China and the seventeenth richest man in the world with a wealth of $ 38.8 billion.
The businessman then listed Alibaba on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014: the $ 25 billion share issue was the largest initial public offering in world history to date.
This year, Jack Ma was preparing to make history again by including the Ant Group on November 3.
It was planned to raise $ 34.5 billion, setting a record for the second time in IPO terms in world history by Jack Ma.
That certain “say”
Although the Chinese supervisory authorities initially authorized Ant Group’s debut,
The record IPO was personally filmed by Chinese President Xi Qingping, according to Wall Street Journal sources.
Hszi has reportedly been watching with concern for years how big technologists like Alibaba or Ma Huateng’s Tencentje have grown up in China. The Chinese president reportedly feared both the Communist Party and his personal power.As it reaches 70-80% of the Chinese population through Alibaba apps. Jack Ma has also presented himself as a “savior of little people”, helping SMEs to get out of problems that are not addressed by “state banks stuck in the past.”
Jack Ma and his business conglomerate, on the other hand, brought the Communist Party began to openly criticize their regulatory practices, and the financial sector dominated by public financial institutions, and it wasn’t even subtly worded.
He spoke at a financial conference on October 24 in Shanghai, where, among other things “Elders club” the country’s oversight bodies, which do not adequately support youth innovation, and China’s financial system (largely state-owned) “By-product of the industrial revolution” which he believes must be urgently reformed.
He also repeatedly cited President Xi Qingping; He tried to explain some of the statements made by the Chinese leader in such a way that in fact the president wanted to support innovation with them. Conceivably this is what cut the political leader’s security ranks the most, though Jack Ma probably intended it as something of a compliment.
We cannot monitor an airport like a train station. We cannot use yesterday’s methods to monitor tomorrow
– said Jack Ma, among others, and then spoke about the need for a completely new kind of financial system.
A regular showdown was launched against Jack Ma
Thanks to Jack Ma’s overwhelming success, he probably thought he had gained enough influence to accept even his cautious criticism of the Chinese government. It soon became clear that this was not the case at all: whereas in the United States, Congress, the FDIC, the Fed, or the SEC, for example Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey, could be easily criticized to protect the interests of their business, In China, criticizing state organizations remains a serious sin.
Nor was there any punishment left, the Communist Party quickly set out to “fix” the businessman, who had become too “arrogant”. Representatives of the state apparatus:
- Ant Group’s IPOs have been revoked.
- The strictest capital requirements have been hung around the neck of the company.
- The ant administration was ordered to urgently change the company’s operating model.
- They have been prosecuted against Alibaba for violations of antitrust rules.
- In December, police raids were carried out at various offices of the group.
However, the most serious thing is that
The possibility arose that Beijing would simply fragment Jack Ma’s tech empire and directly take over entire business lines.
Apparently, Jack Ma, when he learned that he had withdrawn the phosphorus in the Communist Party, volunteered a stake in the state in his companies as a firefighter:
Since the sinister speech, Alibaba shares have been smashed by investors: the Chinese tech company’s shares are already listed on the New York Stock Exchange. They are minus 26.81%. While on October 27, the tech company’s stock was worth $ 317, now just $ 232, bringing the company’s market capitalization to nearly $ 300 billion.
Where did the richest man in China go?
However, the biggest mystery in all of this is that Jack Ma it has simply disappeared since October. He did not write on Twitter, did not appear in public, even disappeared from the team of his own show:
Many have begun to speculate that Jack Mat was simply executed with a North Korean feat, but the chances are good.
The most likely scenario is that the entrepreneur attends ongoing hearings or consultation with Chinese regulatorswho will be instructed to restructure some of their business activities.
It’s easy to imagine that they will also separate certain businesses from Alibaba and Ant Group, and then instruct the two companies to return to their core business, which is e-commerce and payment system operations.
In the worst case can happen the fact that Jack Ma is being tried and found guilty, so it could easily be that his business empire falls entirely into the hands of the state, and then the businessman is even sent to prison for a few years.
No Jack Ma would be the first influential businessman in China with whom the Chinese president settled accounts in this way because it gained too much power. Vang Qi-lin, the former richest man in the country, was jailed for 18 years for “fraud and abuse of power” after his insurance empire grew too large.
It’s a question of how cooperative Jack Ma will be and what he will give the Communist Party in exchange for escaping a twenty-year prison sentence. It is worth noting that the duality of Alibaba and Ant Group is not only a profitable business empire, but also one of the largest technology innovation laboratories and data mines in the world.
Whichever scenario prevails, we will likely have to say goodbye for a while to the media-loving conference speaker, techmogul Jack Ma, who will focus primarily on saving his business interests, image, and personal freedom.
Cover image: Getty Images
[ad_2]
