Billionaire Alibaba founder Jack Ma reappears in Hong Kong - sources
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[October 13, 2021]
By Kane Wu and Julie Zhu
HONG KONG (Reuters) -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 made a limited number of public appearances in mainland China
after that, as speculation swirled about his whereabouts, one of the
sources said the visit marked 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.
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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.
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![](../images/101321pics/news_w43.jpg)
Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of China's Alibaba Group,
speaks in front of a picture of SoftBank's human-like robot named
'pepper' during a news conference in Chiba, Japan, June 18, 2015.
REUTERS/Yuya Shino
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In May, Ma made 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 Market would have been the
world's largest.
($1 = 7.7812 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Kane Wu and Julie Zhu; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee
and Alison Williams)
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