SHANGHAI: The largest stock offer in history has made Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, China’s richest person with a fortune of $25bn, an annual wealth ranking for the country showed yesterday.
Ma, who had to persuade friends to give him $60,000 to start Alibaba just 15 years ago after being rejected by US venture capitalists, now leads a company valued at more than $200bn after listing on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.
“It has been an amazing year for China’s best tycoons despite the jitters about the Chinese economy,” said China-based luxury magazine publisher Hurun Report in its annual rich list.
Ma reaped more than $800m from selling shares through the initial public offering in Alibaba, based on company filings, with the value of his remaining stake of 7.8 percent surging to more than $17bn by Monday.
Last year the estimated wealth of the former English teacher turned Internet entrepreneur was just over $4bn, which did not even place him in the top 20, according to the 2013 survey.
Ma’s parents were poorly educated and his father depended on a monthly retirement allowance of just $40 to support the family, according to Chinese state media.
Alibaba’s listing raised a total of $25bn.
Only one other of Alibaba’s 18 co-founders made the rich list this year. He is Simon Xie, now vice president of Alibaba’s China investment, with $1.6bn.
Ma pushed property tycoon Wang Jianlin, whose Wanda company bought US cinema chain AMC Entertainment, into second place from first last year with a fortune of $24.2bn. AFP
