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December 13, 2014

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Alibaba’s Ma becomes Asia’s richest man with US$28.6b

By Ding Yining | December 13, 2014, Saturday | Print Edition

JACK Ma, the founder and chairman of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, is the richest person in Asia with a personal fortune of US$28.6 billion, according to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The poll put the 50-year-old ahead of Hong Kong property tycoon Li Ka-shing, 86, who had held the top spot since 2012 and is currently worth US$28.3 billion.

Alibaba’s massive initial public offering in September and a 54 percent surge in its shares since then has seen Ma’s fortune soar.

The company’s US$259 billion market capitalization makes it more valuable than Amazon and eBay combined, with investors confident that China’s tech-savvy young consumers will fuel further growth in the nation’s online shopping sector.

More than half of Ma’s fortune — US$16.3 billion — comes from his 6.3 percent stake in Alibaba, with the rest derived from stakes in affiliate companies and investment funds.

The former English teacher holds almost 50 percent of Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial Services Group, which controls online payment service Alipay.

Although Ma stepped down as CEO of Alibaba last year, passing the reins to former Executive Vice President Lu Zhaoxi, he remains one of China’s most influential businessmen. He is also active as the head of several charitable organizations.

In its first earnings report since completing the world’s biggest stock offering in September, Alibaba said its third-quarter net profit rose 15 percent year on year to US$1.1 billion.

Its online marketplaces Taobao and Tmall had a combined 307 million active buyers as of September, and their revenue soared almost 54 percent from the same quarter of last year to US$2.7 billion.

On this year’s Singles Day on November 11 — a once low-key celebration that was reinvented by Alibaba in 2009 — sales of 42,000 brands through almost 27,000 vendors topped 57.1 billion yuan (US$9.2 billion).

(See Alipay on page 7)

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