China’s e-commerce powerhouse, Alibaba, has revealed plans to split into six corporate groups, with former Alibaba boss Daniel Zhang as CEO of the holding company. Each business group will be led by its own CEO and board of directors, giving them independence to raise capital and become public as and when they are ready. The six corporate groups will include international and China-related online trade, media, cloud business, logistics, and local services. Zhang will oversee the cloud business, home to the AI division, currently working on generative AI services. The split indicates the company’s readiness to raise money on the capital market in the future.
Notably, the pressure on the tech industry has eased recently after the Chinese Government’s recent crackdown on internet companies. The move comes as shares rose steeply premarket in the US, highlighting the market’s reaction to the split. Founder, Jack Ma, made his first appearance in China in more than a year on Monday, following his absence from public life since China’s crackdown on Ant Group’s IPO in 2020.
Ma, the founder of both Alibaba and Ant Group, who has recently fallen out of favor, retired earlier this year from the online empire he built. However, his move to Ant Group came under fire following a Wuhan lecture, where he criticised Chinese state lenders. Following the IPO crackdown, Ma was expected to remain out of the public eye for some time, making his reappearance notable.
