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Alibaba and Ant Group founder Jack Ma lost the title of China’s richest man, showed a list published on Tuesday as his peers prospered while his empire was under strong scrutiny by Chinese regulators.
Ma and his family ranked first among China’s richest on the Hurun Global Rich List in 2020 and 2019, but are now fourth, behind Nongfu Spring’s bottled water maker Zhong Shanshan, Tencent Holding’s Pony Ma and from e-commerce starter Collin Huang of Pinduoduo, the most recent list shown.
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Its drop in the top three comes “after China’s regulators controlled Ant Group and Alibaba on antitrust issues,” said the Hurun report.
Ma’s recent troubles were sparked by a speech on October 24 in which he attacked China’s regulatory system, leading to the suspension of his Ant Group’s $ 37 billion initial public offering just days before the fintech giant’s public offering.
Regulators have since stepped up antitrust scrutiny in the country’s technology sector, with Alibaba getting the better of it; the market regulator launched an official antitrust investigation on Alibaba in December.
Alibaba Group co-founder and executive chairman Jack Ma attends the World Conference on Artificial Intelligence (WAIC) in Shanghai, China, on September 17, 2018. (REUTERS / Aly music)
Chinese regulators have also begun to tighten their grip on the fintech sector and have asked Ant to convert some of its businesses into a financial holding company to be regulated like traditional financial firms.
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Ma, who is not known for dodging the spotlight, then disappeared from the public eye for about three months, prompting frantic speculation about his whereabouts. He reappeared in January with a 50-second video appearance.
China’s richest man, Zhong, made his first appearance at the top in large part thanks to the performance of the shares of Nongfu Spring and vaccine maker Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, which he also controls.
Tencent’s Ma saw his wealth increase 70% over the year to 480 billion yuan ($ 74.16 billion), while Huang de Pinduoduo’s fortune grew 283% to 450 billion yuan, the list said. By comparison, Ma and his family’s wealth grew by 22% to 360 billion yuan.
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Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, owner of TikTok, first entered the top five positions among Chinese billionaires on Hurun’s Global Rich List, with an estimated personal fortune of $ 54 billion.
(This story is updated to correct the date of Jack Ma’s regulatory speech for October 24, not October 23 in par 4)