Jack Ma is the founder of Ant Group, which is China’s largest payment intermediary with more than 730 million monthly users in the payment service Alipay.
He is also the man behind the e-commerce giant Alibaba, which this weekend was fined a giant of almost 24 billion kroner for monopoly activities.
Controversial financial celebrity
Jack Ma has become an international business celebrity, and controversial in his own home country.
After challenging the Chinese authorities in a speech last autumn, Ma mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for several months before reappearing in January.
Falls on the rich list
In the controversial speech, Ma accused the Chinese authorities of hindering technological development, and he referred to the banks in the country as old-fashioned mortgage lenders.
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Now he turns
A planned IPO in December last year of Alibaba’s payment services company, Ant Group, was halted while Ma had disappeared from the public eye. The news came a few days before the listing was to be completed.
The listing was set to become the world’s largest ever, with a value of more than NOK 300 billion.
– Like swallowing razor blades
Chinese authorities demanded that the company had to be transformed into a financial holding company, which means that Ma is subject to the same regulations as ordinary banks in the country, writes BBC.
Ma must now be prepared to comply with this requirement:
– With guidance from the financial supervisory authorities, Ant Group will do everything we can to implement the plan, so that our business and our future growth is completely in line with the guidelines, Ant Group writes on the social media Wechat, according to the news agency AP.
Billionaires
The mentioned fine of NOK 24 billion for monopoly activities will be China’s largest ever. It was estimated to correspond to 4 percent of Alibaba’s turnover in 2019.
The billionaire is back
The fine was announced on Saturday. Alibaba shares rose 6.5 percent on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday.
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