There are higher chances of Jack Ma relinquishing Ant Group’s ownership. Ant Group’s founder said that the company would change how its shareholders are set up.
After the change is made, “no single shareholder or group of shareholders would have control over Ant Group,” the company said in a statement on Saturday.
After a regulatory crackdown in late 2020 stopped Ant’s $37 billion initial public offering (IPO). And this forced the company to restructure. This is undoubtedly a big new step.
According to the IPO prospectus that Ant filed with the markets in 2020, Ma only owns 10% of the company. But through other organizations, he has a lot of power over the company.
He has the public for the last two years successfully. It’s mainly since he challenged the treatment of internet enterprises in China.
Jack Ma is the founder and CEO of Alibaba Group.
There is rumour in the air that he is hiding out in Tokyo.
Since November, Chinese regulators have targeted Ma’s technological empire, reducing his wealth from $50 billion to $21.7 billion (£18 billion).
Reuters says that if the changes take place, Ma’s right to vote would decline from 50% to 6.2%.
Ant also said it would increase the number of independent board members to five, which would give them a supermajority. Right now, there are eight people on the board.
In November, rumors spread that Ma and his family had been hiding out in Tokyo during Beijing’s attack on the country’s top tech companies and most powerful and wealthy business people.
Last week, the news said that he was in Thailand. Bloomberg informs Ma was at Bangkok’s Jay Fai. This restaurant has one Micheline star. On Friday, the restaurant put up a photo of its chef having a good time with Ma.