Jack Ma: Jack Ma gives up control of the Chinese fintech company Ant Group

Chinese fintech giant Ant Group announced on Saturday that founder Jack Ma will no longer control the company. It said that after a series of stock adjustments, Ma relinquished most of his voting rights.

Ma previously owned more than 50% of the voting rights in Ant, but the changes mean his stake has fallen to 6.2%, according to a Reuters report.

According to Ant’s IPO filing, filed in 2020, Ma only owned a 10% stake in Ant, but he exercised control over the company through related entities. Hangzhou Yunbo, an investment vehicle for Ma, controlled two other entities that together own 50.5% of Ant, according to the Reuters report.

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Ant Group said it would add a fifth independent director to its board so that they make up a majority of the company’s board. It currently has eight board members.

“As a result, there will no longer be a situation where a direct or indirect shareholder will have sole or joint control over Ant Group,” it said in its statement.

Chinese regulators approved the fintech giant’s plan to raise 10.5 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) for its consumer unit, a step forward in its state overhaul of the technology company. This new plan is a scaled-down version of previous efforts to raise capital to 30 billion yuan. In a July filing, affiliate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. reiterated that Ma “intends to reduce and then limit his direct and indirect financial interest in Ant Group over time” to a percentage not exceeding 8.8%.

Ma has largely disappeared from the public eye since criticizing Chinese regulators in 2020, accusing the state-run banks of having a “pawnbroker mentality”. Media reports in November said Ma had been living in Tokyo for about six months.

Both companies he founded – Ant and e-commerce group Alibaba – have faced a number of regulatory hurdles. The Chinese government also canceled Ant’s $37 billion IPO and fined Alibaba a record $2.8 billion over antitrust concerns in 2021.

Following the alleged data leak of nearly one billion citizens, China also summoned executives and senior engineers from Alibaba Group, after the hacker claimed the data came from the Alibaba server

(With agency input)

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