Chinese billionaire Jack Ma is giving up control of the financial giant Ant Group. The founder of the company and the largest Chinese trading platform, Alibaba, is withdrawing more from his Internet empire, said a statement issued by the Ant Group on Saturday.
The move comes as Chinese regulators cracked down on the fintech giant’s planned initial public offering two years ago and have reined in the booming tech sector ever since.
Stock exchange plans revived
The departure of the apparently disgraced founder could reignite Ant Group’s IPO plans. However, Chinese stock markets require a waiting period of two to three years after these corporate governance changes. Hong Kong, on the other hand, only has one year.
Ant Group is behind the Chinese mobile payment platform Alipay with over 1 billion users. The IPO planned for 2020 was set to be the largest in the world at $35 billion and backed off at the last minute due to regulatory authorities.
Since then, the 58-year-old billionaire has largely withdrawn from the public eye, according to press reports, he lived longer in Japan last year and was serendipitously seen in Thailand last week. (appa)
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