Ant Group, an Alibaba affiliate and a large fintech company, has started to distance itself as it carried out a personal separation between Alibaba and management.
According to economic media Chai Xin on the 27th, Alibaba’s business report for fiscal 2022 stated that seven executives of Ant Group have resigned as Alibaba partners as of May 31. This is also a decision to improve the governance structure of both companies.
The Alibaba Partner is an organization created in 2010 and has more authority than the board of directors. It consists of a group of founders who have resigned from management, including Ma Yun and Tsai Chung-shin, and the current top management, and more than half of them have the right to nominate directors of the board of directors. It’s a rooftop group.
Ma Yun has exerted a great influence on management as a partner, although he has stepped down from the front line since the story that criticized the financial authorities in 2020. Alibaba naturally cut off its human exchanges with Ant Group by changing regulations so that executives of its affiliates can no longer be partners.
Alibaba has been involved in management as the largest shareholder with a 33% stake in Ant Group. As Ant Group entrusted Alipay’s mobile payment wallet operation rights to Ant Group, Ant Group was able to grow rapidly.
In addition to organizing the human network, Alibaba also canceled the data sharing contract signed in 2014. If necessary, it leaves only a minimal loop that individual data sharing agreements can be signed with Ant Group.
The distancing between the two giants came a year and a half after Ant Group’s IPO was thwarted by the Chinese government in November 2020, shortly after the Ma Yun story. As the IPO was suspended, Ant Group has been conducting governance reform under government surveillance. It is currently trying to convert to a financial holding company. As soon as this work is completed, expectations are rising to re-promote the listing.
Even if the listing is re-promoted, it is highly likely that the ransom will not reach before. This is because the Chinese government has witnessed that it can face a management crisis at any time if it decides to. The value of Ant Group, which was valued at $235 billion at the time of its listing in 2020, has fallen by one-third to $78 billion today.
