中国 E-コマース巨人の創業者は,慈善事業へに重点を置く計画である。
[読者コメント 39 件]
事情を知る1人によれば,中国に沸き起こる豊かな経済力に乗って 世界最大の E-コマース企業を建設した大富豪 馬雲は,アリババ集団の執行役員董事長の職を移譲して,慈善事業などに焦点を移す計画である。
馬雲は この移譲の時間軸を含めて,自分の計画を 54 歳を迎える月曜日に開示する予定である … とその人が言う。馬雲は秩序だった移譲を確保し,アリババの取締役に留まる計画である … とその人は強調した。
土曜日に南華早報に掲載されたインタビューで 馬雲は,これまでの 10 年間 リーダーシップを手放す準備をしてきた … と語った。今ではアリババは "破壊を起こさずに私が辞職できる" 準備がなされている … と彼は言った。
馬雲はアリババの指揮を執った長年の間に,そのカリスマと 率直さと (故郷杭州の風光明媚な西湖でアメリカの観光客をガイドして培った) 流暢な英語で 中国の最も有名なビジネスのリーダーとして浮上した。
"馬雲は外国でも本国でも,中国インターネットの爆発と 中国消費者ブームの最も明瞭な象徴として認識されている。" … と『アリババ:Jack が建てた家』の著者 Duncan Clark が言う。"つまり,2つの大きな力と結びついた象徴的存在が,経営者としての機能を手放そうと計画しているのだ。"
馬雲のこの動きは,昨年から施行されたサイバーセキュリティ法による支配を含めて,中国政府がハイテク
企業に対する支配を強める中,中国で変化しつつあるビジネス環境の印であろう … と Clark は言う。この取り締まりは,コンテンツに依存する企業に大きな影響を与えたが,馬雲の 螞蟻金融のスピンオフも,厳しい規制の影響を受けた。
"企業家にとって酸素の供給が枯渇する懸念は ないのか?" … と Clark は問う。
馬雲はリーダーシップの移譲を,CEO を辞任した5年前に始めた。アリババの現在の CEO は 張勇 (Daniel Chang) であり,執行役員副董事長は 蔡崇信 (Joe Tsai) である。7月時点で 馬雲はアリババの 4% を持つ No. 4 大株主である。
Even so, Mr. Ma and others in an entity called the “Alibaba Partnership” still hold sway over much of the decision-making in the company under its shareholding structure.
Since stepping down, Mr. Ma has spent much of his time at Alibaba’s Hangzhou campus receiving visiting dignitaries or traveling the world to speak out on causes he believes in. Mr. Ma most recently hosted Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at Alibaba’s tree-lined campus in August.
The Chinese tech founder is also a strong proponent of education and entrepreneurship in China and beyond. He frequently makes trips to Africa, where he takes the time to meet young African startup founders and now offers an entrepreneurship prize.
Mr. Ma started as a teacher, and education will be one of his top interests as he winds down his involvement at Alibaba, the person familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Ma, one of China’s richest people, is among the first of a generation of China’s internet pioneers, which include Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Pony Ma and Baidu Inc.’s Robin Li. The former teacher is known as a quirky leader, having dressed up as the Terminator and Michael Jackson at company events and last year starring in a martial arts movie in which he defeated stars like Jet Li.
Mr. Ma started an online directory in 1995 and then founded Alibaba.com BABA 1.56% in his apartment four years later—not long before the global dot-com bust—with the goal of using the internet to connect small businesses in China to bigger, more-distant markets.
His company dominates e-commerce in China through online sales platforms Taobao and Tmall, where Chinese consumers and businesses alike shop for apparel, food, electronics and other goods. The company reported revenue of $11.83 billion in its second quarter, up 61% year over year.
Alibaba is valued at around $420 billion, rivaling Amazon.com Inc. globally, and like Amazon has moved into entertainment and cloud-computing businesses. Its annual net profit last fiscal year was $10.2 billion.
With e-commerce as a base, Mr. Ma moved Alibaba into a variety of other businesses, including entertainment and mobile payments.
He launched what became his Ant Financial spinoff with Alipay, initially an escrow service that would hold payments until shoppers received their goods. Last year, it handled more payments than Mastercard and controlled the world’s largest money-market fund.
The success of Alibaba has also led to increasing dealings with China’s authoritarian government, ruled by the Communist Party. Alibaba has data on hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens who use the company and its affiliated services to shop online, stream videos, pay rent, send text messages, make comments on social media and more—and the government has the ability to access that data as part of a sophisticated national surveillance operation.
Alibaba and China’s other internet giants have benefited from trade policies shielding them from foreign competition, and have had little choice but to cooperate. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Alibaba’s sprawling campus in Hangzhou includes a police outpost where authorities can tap into the trove of information the tech giant collects through its e-commerce and financial-payment networks.
Mr. Ma has had a few setbacks in his career, including continuing complaints over the past decade that counterfeit goods are readily available on Alibaba’s platforms. The company’s Taobao site was removed from the U.S. Trade Representative’s “notorious markets list” in 2012, but it was placed back on in 2016 and 2017 for selling fakes.
Alibaba says it works hard to keep counterfeit goods off its platforms, but Mr. Ma himself drew ire two years ago when he said fake products were often of a “better quality and a better price” than genuine products.
And despite Alibaba’s successful push into emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and India, the U.S. has remained elusive. Ailbaba’s affiliate Ant Financial failed in its bid to acquire U.S. money transfer company MoneyGram International Inc. this January, even after raising its bid for the Dallas-based company to $1.2 billion from an original proposal of $880 million.
The company said it was unable to secure approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. despite a year-long process, in a move widely seen as indicative of U.S.-China tensions. In its core e-commerce business, Alibaba also tried and failed to crack the U.S. online retail market.
Mr. Ma’s decision to pull back from company leadership comes at a chaotic time for China’s e-commerce industry. The industry faces a Chinese economy whose growth is slowing, weighed down by a the government’s debt cleanup and uncertainty over prolonged trade tensions with the U.S. The chief executive of e-commerce rival JD.com Inc., Liu Qiangdong, was arrested on suspicion of a rape last week in the U.S. He has denied wrongdoing and was released without bail while police continue their investigation.
Mr. Ma’s transition will likely have little impact on the day-to-day running of the company, said Mitchell Green, the founder and partner of Lead Edge Capital, a New York equity-investment firm, noting that the company has been run by Mr. Tsai, Mr. Zhang, chief financial officer Maggie Wu for several years already.
Mr. Green remains bullish on Alibaba stock, adding that he had just bought more of the company’s shares on Thursday.
“These guys are the dominant leaders in retail consumption and cloud computing in China. Ant Financial will grow exponentially in next 20 years too. If you believe China is going to be bigger in 20 years than it is today, then this is the stock to own.”
—Yoko Kubota contributed to this article.
Write to Liza Lin at Liza.Lin@wsj.com
The person emphasized that Mr. Ma wants to ensure an orderly transition and plans to remain on the company’s board.
共産圏での出来事であるだけに,こういう部分に敏感に反応する読者もいるだろう。
歴史を見れば,共産圏では "権力の秩序だった移譲" の例は少ない。