Billionaire Alibaba founder Jack Ma reappears in Hong Kong – sources
Kane Wu and Julie Zhu
HONG
KONG
–
Alibaba
Group
founder
Jack
Ma
, largely out of public view since a regulatory clampdown started on his business empire late last year, is currently in
Hong
Kong
and has met business associates in recent days, two
sources
told Reuters.
The Chinese
billionaire
has been keeping a low profile since delivering a speech in October last year in Shanghai criticising China’s financial regulators. That triggered a chain of events that resulted in the shelving of his Ant Group’s mega IPO.
While
Ma
ma
de a limited number of public appearances in
ma
inland China after that, as speculation swirled about his whereabouts, one of the
sources
said the visit
ma
rked his first trip to the Asian financial hub since last October.
Alibaba
did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside of its regular business hours. Comments from
Ma
typically come via the company.
The
sources
declined to be identified due to confidentiality constraints.
Ma
, once China’s most famous and outspoken entrepreneur, met at least “a few” business associates over meals last week, said the people.
Ma
, who is mostly based in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, where his business empire is headquartered, owns at least one luxury house in the former British colony that also houses some of his companies’ offshore business operations.
Alibaba
is also listed in
Hong
Kong
, besides New York.
The former English teacher disappeared from public view for three months before surfacing in January, speaking to a group of teachers by video. That eased concern about his unusual absence from the limelight and sent
Alibaba
shares surging.
In
Ma
y,
Ma
ma
de a rare visit to
Alibaba
‘s Hangzhou campus during the firm’s annual “Ali Day” staff and family event, company
sources
have said.
On Sept. 1, photographs of
Ma
visiting several agricultural greenhouses in the eastern Zhejiang province, home to both
Alibaba
and its fintech affiliate Ant, went viral on Chinese social media.
The next day,
Alibaba
said it would invest 100 billion yuan ($15.5 billion) by 2025 in support of “common prosperity”, becoming the latest corporate giant to pledge support for the wealth sharing initiative driven by President Xi Jinping.
Alibaba
and its tech rivals have been the target of a wide-ranging regulatory crackdown on issues ranging from monopolistic behaviour to consumer rights. The e-commerce behemoth was fined a record $2.75 billion in April over monopoly violations.
Earlier this year, regulators also imposed a sweeping restructuring on Ant, whose botched $37 billion initial public offering in
Hong
Kong
and on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style STAR
Ma
rket would have been the world’s largest. –
Reuters