Alibaba co-founder to relinquish control of Ant Group

Jack Ma, co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is to give up control of of Ant Group, after a government crackdown on powerful companies and individuals.

For the past two years there has been much talk of Mr Ma divesting his stake, with the Ant Group valued last year between 75 and 150 billion dollars before its IPO was halted.

Ant Group runs Alipay, the main online payment system in China, of which Mr Ma owned 50 percent.

Reports from the BBC said the changes in governance structure will see Mr Ma’s control be limited to 6 percent. In a statement Ant Group wrote: In order to continue to optimize our corporate governance and achieve long-term sustainable development, Ant Group Co., Ltd. has been undertaking several initiatives since 2021. We have increased the number of independent directors to four, which constitutes half of the incumbent members of our board of directors

Ant Group has spent the past two year restructuring the company with a more equitable board and shareholder decision making process, after it was fined over 1 billion dollars by Chinese authorities.