Jack is back – and investors are relieved.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s share price rose on Wednesday after billionaire founder Jack Ma made his first public appearance in almost three months.
Alibaba’s US-listed shares rose 6.8 percent in trading trading to $ 268.81 from 7:03 a.m. after Ma reappeared during an online ceremony held by his teachers’ charity on arranged the countryside, and expressed concern about his long silence.
The English teacher-technology magnate spoke from a room decorated with flower arrangements and a large painting in a 50-second video that also contains footage of Mom visiting a school in Tonglu province in China last week.
Before the short cut, Ma had not yet been seen in public, as he was giving a speech on October 24 in which China’s regulatory system was slammed. This apparently angered Chinese officials, who halted the initial public offering of Ma’s digital payment firm, Ant Group, the following month.
Mom’s unusual absence sparked speculation earlier this month that he had gone missing – especially after he apparently did not appear in the final episode of ‘Africa’s Business Heroes’, a TV show of ‘Apprentice’.
But Duncan Clark, an investor and adviser in China’s technology sector, who has known Ma for decades, recently told NPR that Ma was just ‘told to lie low’.
Mom (56) is China’s fourth richest man with a total fortune of about $ 53 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Its net worth has fallen by about $ 8 billion since the day of his fateful speech in October.
With Post threads