Chinese business magnate Jack Ma’s has seen his wealth topple by staggering $11 billion since October-end amidst continuous attack from Chinese regulators.
The co-founder of Alibaba Group has found himself deep into regulatory crackdown by Chinese authorities after he criticised China’s policy and alleged that the government is gagging innovations with the introduction of new policies.
The 56-year-old former teacher reached a peak of $61.7 billion net worth this year and was well on his way to regaining the wealthiest person of Asia title. But since the crackdown, his personal wealth has fallen down to $50.9 billion and he has seen himself slip to 25th position on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a list of the world's 500 richest people.
However, Ma isn’t the only one who is witnessing the wrath of regulators in China.
In recent weeks, China's tech giants have lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market value. Pony Ma's Tencent Holdings Ltd. has dropped 15% since early November and Wang Xing's food delivery giant Meituan is down by almost a fifth from its peak last month. Alibaba's American depositary receipts have declined more than 25% since late October.
Bruce Pang, head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance Securities Hong Kong said, "There is a wave of similar signals showing that China's tech giants are staying on the radar of authorities. The anti-monopoly drafted guidance and antitrust review are just two of those signals.”
Ma faced another big problem when his Ant Group’s Shanghai Initial Public Offering (IPO), which was on its way to becoming the worlds largest-ever IPO with $35 billion, was halted by the Chinese regulators in November. The unprecedented move from the regulators came just two days before Ant Group’s Shanghai debut.
Closer government scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions could add uncertainty to the growth of the internet behemoths.