Jack Ma to leave his 10% stake in Alibaba’s parent company Ant Group following government crackdown

Jack Ma, Chinese billionaire is planning to give up control of Ant Group according to reports on Thursday. A regulatory crackdown in China that wrecked $37 billion IPO in 2020 led to the financial technology giant’s to undertake this move. 

Ant Group is the parent company of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Jack Ma owns 10% stake in Ant Group. Even though he possesses less stake he exercises control over the company through related entities. 

Reports citing unnamed sources stated that Ma could give up relinquish control by transferring some of his voting powers to Ant officials the likes of which will also include Chief Executive Eric Jing. 

Reports of last year’s April stated that Ant was exploring options for Ma to divest his stake in Ant and consequently give up control.

This discussions arose amidst a revamp of Ant and a broader state clampdown on China’s technology sector. This was set in motion after Ma publicly criticizes regulators in a speech in October 2020.

Ant’s IPO was derailed after this speech. This IPO was supposed to be the world’s largest. Since then Ma’s empire has been under regulatory scrutiny and undergoing restructuring.

Ant also operates the world’s largest and China’s ubiquitous mobile payment app Alipay. This app has more than one billion users.