BEIJING (Reuters) – Alibaba and Ant Group founder Jack Ma has lost the title of China’s richest man, a list released on Tuesday showed as his comrades prospered while his empire was under intense control by Chinese regulators.
Ma and her family had ranked first among China’s richest on Hurun’s global rich list in 2020 and 2019, but are now fourth behind Zhong Shanshan, bottled water maker Nongfu Spring, Pony Ma of Tencent Holding and the new e-commerce Collin Huang of Pinduoduo was shown the latest list.
Its fall from the top three comes “after China’s regulators relinquished Ant Group and Alibaba on antitrust issues,” the Hurun report said.
Ma’s recent problems were triggered by a speech on October 24 in which China’s regulatory system exploded, prompting the suspension of the $ 37 billion IPO of its Ant group just days earlier. from the public list of the fintech giant.
Since then, regulators have tightened antitrust control over the country’s technology sector, and Alibaba has taken much of the heat; the market regulator launched an official antitrust probe on Alibaba in December.
Chinese regulators have also begun tightening control of the information technology sector and have asked Ant to fold some of its businesses into a financial holding company that regulates itself like traditional financial companies.
Ma, who is not known to have escaped the light, disappeared from public view for about three months, causing frantic speculation about his whereabouts. It re-emerged in January with a 50-second video appearance.
China’s richest man, Zhong, made his first appearance in the first place largely thanks to the performance of shares of Nongfu Spring and vaccine maker Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, which he also controls.
Ma de Tencent saw its wealth increase 70% year-on-year to 480 billion yuan ($ 74.16 billion), while Huind de Pinduoduo’s fortune grew 283% to 450 billion of yuan, according to the list. In comparison, the wealth of Ma and her family grew by 22% to 360 billion yuan.
Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok owner ByteDance, ranked first among the top five among Chinese billionaires on Hurun’s global list of rich people, with an estimated personal wealth of $ 54 billion.
(This story is completed with the correct date of Jack Ma’s regulatory speech until October 24 and not October 23 in paragraph 4)
Reports by Yingzhi Yang in Beijing and Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Edited by Gerry Doyle