The Very Public Humbling of Jack Ma

He was set to raise $35 billion from Ant’s IPO. Then China showed him who’s boss

- James E. Ellis

When Jack Ma took to a Shanghai conference stage in October, China’s most famous entrepreneur was on the brink of pulling off an unprecedented $35 billion initial public offering for the finance juggernaut he co-founded two decades earlier. Ant Group Co.’s listing would value the company at more than $300 billion and swell Ma’s own fortune beyond its already blistering $61 billion, cementing his position as the nation’s richest man.

Ma, a co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., China’s largest company, told the audience that day at the Bund Summit that he was torn about speaking, but felt this was a “most critical” moment in the development of finance. What followed was a 20-minute roasting of anachronistic government regulation that would suffocate innovation in China. It was a vintage performance by the famously outspoken executive, known for his confident swagger and soaring rhetoric. But this time, like Icarus after he flew too close to the sun, Ma has found himself quickly brought back to earth.

Since September, China’s government has launched a coordinated regulatory crackdown, which in November scuttled the Ant public offering and, together with tough new antitrust rules, triggered about a $140 billion, or 17%, decline in the market value of Ma’s Alibaba.

Meanwhile, the flamboyant Ma has all but vanished from public view. As of early December, with his empire under regulatory scrutiny, the man most closely identified with the meteoric rise of China Inc. was advised by the government to stay in the country, according to a person familiar with the matter.