Jack Ma has relinquished control of Ant, the Chinese fintech that operates payments system Alipay, in what appears to be an attempt to appease the local authorities that had blocked plans for a record-breaking stock market listing more than two years ago.
The former English teacher, who achieved celebrity status in China and across the globe, will see his control of the voting rights in Ant fall from about 50 per cent to just 6.2 per cent, according to calculations by Reuters.
Ma, 58, has maintained a lower profile since an outburst in October 2020 — just as the initial public offering of Ant was being finalised —when he was perceived to criticise Chinese financial regulators.
Since then Ant has been restructuring and tightening up the controls between its various financial arms — such as wealth management, lending and the one billion users of Alipay — as China cracked down on its tech giants.
Analysts said the move could further delay any plans for an IPO of Ant as a change of control causes a three-year delay to listing in the Chinese market and one year in Hong Kong. They also said that the move illustrated Beijing’s determination to rein in the influence of high-profile individuals.
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“Jack Ma’s departure from Ant Financial, a company he founded, shows the determination of the Chinese leadership to reduce the influence of large private investors,” said Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research.
“This trend will continue the erosion of the most productive parts of the Chinese economy.”
The float of Ant on stock markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai was billed as the world’s largest when it was announced in 2020, surpassing even the share sale by Saudi Arabia of its oil giant Aramco. Ant intended to raise about $35 billion, more than the $25 billion of shares sold in Saudi Aramco.
Ma shot to fame after the success of Alibaba, the shopping platform he co-founded in a small apartment in Hangzhou, China. Until the failure of the Ant float he had appeared to epitomise a new era of entrepreneurship in the Communist country. Ant was separated from Alibaba in 2011.
In a statement Ant said that changes to its structure were being made so that “no shareholder, alone or jointly with other parties, will have control over” the business.
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While Ma owns 10 per cent of Ant, the prospectus for its aborted IPO showed that he actually had control over 50.5 per cent of the business through other entities.
The change will give greater voting rights to nine other key individuals, including the chairman Eric Jing — who can use their power independently of one another. Their economic interests do not change. A new director will also be appointed.
Bloomberg reported that Ma was in Thailand last week, spotted at the Michelin-starred street food restaurant Jay Fai in Bangkok. Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index values him at $33.8 billion, making him the fourth richest person in China. The Financial Times has reported that he has been living in Japan.
