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BEIJING, Oct. 27 – Chinese tech titan Jack Ma will become the world’s 11th richest person after the financial arm of his e-commerce titan Alibaba raises billions in a gigantic public listing, according to Bloomberg News.
Ant Group said yesterday that it plans to raise US $ 34 billion (RM141.5 billion) in a shared listing between Hong Kong and Shanghai, making it the largest initial public offering in history.
The electronic payments giant, which runs China’s dominant online payment system Alipay, plans to sell 1.67 billion shares at HK $ 80 each in Hong Kong starting today.
Ant Group’s split float would top the US $ 29 billion posted by Saudi Aramco in December, a high-profile win for a Chinese company during a period of bad headlines for mainland Chinese tech firms as Beijing and Washington square off in various fronts.
According to Bloomberg, former English teacher Ma’s 8.8 percent stake in Ant is worth $ 27.4 billion based on share price, and will raise the businessman’s fortune to $ 71.1 billion.
That would move him up the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with his wealth outstripping that of Oracle’s Larry Ellison, L’Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers and individual members of the Waltons, whose family owns the American retail giant. Walmart.
The charismatic Chinese businessman was a cash-strapped entrepreneur when someone showed him the Internet on a 1990s trip to the United States.
He launched several Internet-related business projects in China that met with mixed success before convincing a group of friends to give him $ 60,000 to start his e-commerce company on Alibaba in 1999.
Bloomberg said at least 18 other people will become IPO billionaires, including Director Lucy Peng, Ant’s largest individual owner after Ma, and Chairman Eric Jing.
Ant’s operations have expanded over the years from consumer electronic payments to offering business credit and areas including cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
A study last week from the Hurun Report found that Ma’s wealth was up a whopping 45 percent this year, as online shopping companies saw an increase in business due to people being locked up for months during shutdowns. strict to contain the virus. – AFP
