{"id":104636,"date":"2020-11-04T11:36:45","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T08:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/ebullient-billionaire-and-totem-of-chinas-rise\/"},"modified":"2020-11-04T11:36:45","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T08:36:45","slug":"ebullient-billionaire-and-totem-of-chinas-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ebullient-billionaire-and-totem-of-chinas-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"#ebullient billionaire and totem of China’s rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#ebullient billionaire and totem of China’s rise<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Jack
\n Jack Ma’s rags-to-riches backstory has come to embody a self-confident generation of Chinese entrepreneurs ready to shake up the world
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Jack Ma, the ebullient and unconventional billionaire founder of tech giant Alibaba, now finds himself battling the ignominy of having the world’s biggest-ever IPO halted days before its launch by Chinese regulators.<\/p>\n

The most recognisable face in Asian business, Ma was set to see his wealth bulge to over $70 billion in a record-breaking IPO of the group’s financial arm Ant Group in Hong Kong and Shanghai on Thursday.<\/p>\n

But with IPO fever peaking, Chinese regulators abruptly slammed on the brakes, over what initially app<\/a>eared to be concerns about the company’s reach into the finances of hundreds of millions of Chinese people.<\/p>\n

Now China’s poster boy for entrepreneurialism finds himself caught in the glare of the Communist-run state, called in for a dressing down this week before the $34 billion listing was abruptly halted.<\/p>\n

It is a public relations nightmare for Ma, a Communist Party member, whose rags-to-riches backstory has come to embody a self-confident generation of Chinese entrepreneurs ready to shake up the world.<\/p>\n

Charismatic, diminutive and fast-talking, Ma was a cash-strapped entrepreneur working as an English teacher when someone showed him the internet on a 1990s trip<\/a> to the United States\u2014and he was hooked.<\/p>\n

He toyed with several internet-related projects, before convincing a group of friends to give him $60,000 to start a new business in 1999 in China, then still emerging as an economic giant.<\/p>\n

Alibaba was the result, an e-commerce empire founded from his bedroom in Hangzhou, which started an online shopping revolution and grew into a fintech titan.<\/p>\n

The company changed the shopping habits of hundreds of millions of Chinese people, and catapulted Ma into the global limelight.<\/p>\n

“The first time I used the internet, I touched on the keyboard and I find ‘well, this is something I believe, it is something that is going to change the world and change China,'” Ma once told CNN.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Alibaba listed in New York in a world-record $25 billion offering.<\/p>\n

Ant Group, in which Ma is the largest shareholder, is now the world-largest digital payments platform, claiming 731 million monthly users on the Alipay app.<\/p>\n

Crossed the line?<\/b><\/p>\n

Ma long enjoyed an image as the benevolent and unconventional billionaire. <\/p>\n

Often known in China as “Father Ma”, he is praised for his self-deprecation\u2014he recounts being rejected by Harvard “10 times”\u2014and a knack for lighting up company events with song and dance appearances as Lady Gaga, Snow White and Michael Jackson.<\/p>\n

As his fortune grew, Ma rebranded as a philanthropist\u2014in 2019 retiring from the business to focus on giving.<\/p>\n

But even his charitable giving betrays an idiosyncratic touch.<\/p>\n

After footage of a little boy in a village in central China who looked like Ma went viral, the businessman promised to pay for the boy through university.<\/p>\n

But that reputation may be in the balance with the regulatory slap-down playing into a growing sense shared on China’s Twitter<\/a>-like Weibo that the country’s richest man has leaned into hubris by criticising fintech regulators.<\/p>\n

He has faced his share of travails over the years in a country where getting rich risks catching the eyes of the powerful.<\/p>\n

Eyebrows were raised when the state-run People’s Daily revealed that he is a member of the Communist Party\u2014something Ma has never fully commented on.<\/p>\n

He had previously indicated that he preferred to keep the state at arm’s length, telling the World Economic Forum in 2007: “My philosophy is to be in love with the government, but never marry them.”<\/p>\n

But perhaps the biggest challenge is yet to come, as the size and scale of his business mean that relationship may need to be renegotiated.\n <\/p>\n\n

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Ant Group IPO to rocket Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s wealth\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2020 AFP<\/p>\n

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\n Jack Ma: ebullient billionaire and totem of China’s rise (2020, November 4)
\n retrieved 4 November 2020
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news<\/a>\/2020-11-jack-ma-ebullient-billionaire-totem.html<\/p>\n

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