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In the West, Jack Ma has been seen as the epitome of China’s private entrepreneurial drive. In reality, he has long been part of China’s “special-deal” economy that lifts up politically connected businesses. But a "red capitalist" playbook 1/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-blocked-jack-mas-ant-ipo-after-an-investigation-revealed-who-stood-to-gain-11613491292?st=tei2ye04f4lopii&reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter via @WSJ
... no longer works for a business empire that combines technology and capital in a pervasive way across Chinese society. “On one hand, you got a bunch of individuals potentially amassing large amounts of wealth. Then much of the risk has been transferred to the state side.” 2/
Some within China don't even think Ma qualifies to be a "red capitalist" these days. "He is not 'red' enough," a person close to Rong Yiren's family told me.
I would be amiss if I didn't acknowledge some of the sharpest reporting on Ma/Alibaba by the great
@PekingMike https://cn.nytimes.com/business/20140721/c21alibaba/en-us/ and @DavidBarboza2 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/business/international/at-alibaba-the-founder-is-squarely-in-charge.html
@PekingMike https://cn.nytimes.com/business/20140721/c21alibaba/en-us/ and @DavidBarboza2 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/business/international/at-alibaba-the-founder-is-squarely-in-charge.html
Previous reporting by Mike and David really got me interested in finding out why Boyu, the "princeling" PE fund, structured its stake in Ant in a roundabout way in '16 and then made more of a direct investment in Ant in '18
Turns out, Chinese regulations back in '16 restricted "offshore" ownership of payment business, a core part of Ant. Boyu, based in HK, is considered "offshore." Those restrictions didn't get loosened until 2018, when Ant launched a round of fundraising directly targeting...
... offshore investors. That's when Boyu invested in Ant again, via a Cayman Islands based fund. That investment was disclosed in the Ant IPO prospectus.
