Jack Ma (馬雲), the billionaire founder of Chinese Internet behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), yesterday made his first public appearance in more than two months, ending weeks of speculation about his whereabouts.
Ma — one of China’s richest people with a fortune estimated at about US$58 billion — disappeared from the public eye in early November last year, when he was hauled in front of regulators for an October speech critical of China’s outdated financial system.
Shortly afterward, the record-breaking US$37 billion initial public offering (IPO) of his financial group Ant Group Co (螞蟻集團) was spiked at the last minute by Chinese regulators in a shock move that some saw as retaliation for Ma’s outspokenness.
Photo: Bloomberg
However, a video clip of Ma giving a congratulatory speech to rural teachers as part of an annual awards ceremony organized by his charity was published on social media by Chinese financial news outlets yesterday morning.
In the speech, Ma praised China’s poverty alleviation efforts, a central target of the Chinese Communist Party leadership, and vowed to dedicate more efforts towards helping rural teachers.
“My colleagues and I ... are even more determined to devote ourselves to education and public welfare,” he said, according to a transcript of his speech published by Chinese news site Tianmu News.
“China has ... entered a new stage of development, and is moving towards common prosperity,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Jack Ma Foundation, his charitable arm, confirmed that Ma “participated in the online ceremony of the annual Rural Teacher Initiative event.”
Since the Ant IPO was quashed, Chinese regulators have launched an anti-monopoly probe into Alibaba.
Alibaba and Ant said they would cooperate with regulatory requests.
In related news, Citigroup Inc’s private bank said that wealthy investors had rushed to offload stock in Alibaba.
“A large number” of the bank’s ultra-rich clients from the Europe, the Middle East and Africa region cut or exited their holdings in China’s largest e-commerce firm in December last year, after reports of the probe emerged, Citi Private Bank’s Lab for Family Offices said in a report released on Tuesday.
China’s stock market previously attracted significant inflows from the firm’s wealthiest customers in the second half of the year, it said.
Once hailed as drivers of economic prosperity and symbols of the country’s technological prowess, Alibaba and rivals, including Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), face increasing pressure from regulators after amassing hundreds of millions of users and gaining influence over almost every aspect of daily life in China.
The Chinese central bank last week said that Ant Group is working on a timetable to overhaul its business while ensuring operations continue, underscoring the determination to rein in Ma’s business and offering little clue on how far the firm needs to go to assuage Beijing.
Ant Group makes up more than a quarter of Ma’s US$52.9 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) largest customer accounted for 25 percent of its total revenue last year. Analysts believe the unnamed company to be Apple Inc. The world’s largest contract chipmaker generated NT$336.78 billion (US$11.9 billion) in consolidated sales from its largest customer last year, accounting for about 25 percent of the total, financial data provided by TSMC showed. With TSMC believed to be the sole processor supplier for Apple’s iPhone 12, analysts said the largest customer is likely the US consumer electronics giant, which drove the chipmaker’s sales growth. TSMC did not identify the customer. TSMC last year posted
RECRUITMENT: The latest hiring drive — for fabs in Hsinchu, Taichung and Tainan — aims to catch up with growth in the company and new technology development Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday unveiled a plan to hire 9,000 people this year in the latest round of recruitment as the chipmaker races to boost capacity to alleviate a chip crunch and safeguard its technology advantage. TSMC’s talent recruitment this year might be the most ambitious in its history, while last year’s drive of 8,000 added recruits doubled the 4,000 new hires that it averaged over the preceding few years. The latest drive — for fabs in Hsinchu, Taichung and Tainan — aims to catch up with growth in the company and new technology development, the Hsinchu-based chipmaker said. The
CHASING AFTER THE US: China is scrambling to cut its dependence on the West for crucial components such as computer chips, an issue that has become more urgent China pledged to boost spending and drive research into cutting-edge chips and artificial intelligence (AI) in its latest five-year targets, laying out a technological blueprint to vie for global influence with the US. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) singled out key areas in which to achieve “major breakthroughs in core technologies,” including high-end semiconductors, operating systems, computer processors and cloud computing — areas in which US firms now hold sway. Beijing would also aim to get 56 percent of the country on faster 5G networks. Nationwide research and development spending is to increase by more than 7 percent annually, which “is expected to
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 supplier of silicon wafers, yesterday said that it has acquired a 70.27 percent stake in German competitor Siltronic AG, in a public bid that ended four days ago. With the acquisition of a controlling stake in Siltronic, the Taiwanese company is to become the world’s second-largest silicon wafer supplier. Last month, GlobalWafers secured more than 50 percent of Siltronic shares with an offer of 4.35 billion euros (US$5.2 billion) in a public tender that was due to end on Feb. 10, but the acceptance period was extended until Monday. In a statement released yesterday, the Hsinchu-based
RSS