Jack Ma, the e-commerce entrepreneur who built Ant Group, the top provider of financial technology in China, will relinquish control of the company.
Ant Group, a subsidiary of Alibaba, which Ma also established, said in a statement issued on Friday that following an ownership restructure, "no stakeholder, alone, or with other parties," will have "control over Ant Group."
The action comes after previous ones made over the years by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to restrain Ma and the nation's IT industry in general. After criticizing China's regulators two years ago, the formerly prominent Ma almost disappeared from the public eye for 2.5 months.
In addition, just days before its scheduled launch, the government compelled Ant Group to cancel a highly anticipated IPO that was expected to raise over $3 billion.
According to Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research, "Jack Ma's resignation from Ant Financial, a firm he established, illustrates the intention of the Chinese authorities to diminish the power of significant private investors."
The most productive sectors of the Chinese economy will continue to deteriorate as a result of this tendency.
