The world was an entirely different place for Jack Ma nine months ago. Ant Group, a fintech company owned by his retail giant, Alibaba, was all set for a $34.4 billion initial public offering, the world’s biggest. It had got $3 trillion worth of bids from individual investors across its dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The bidding for the IPO was so aggressive that the servers of some brokerage platforms in Hong Kong reportedly crashed owing to the overwhelming number of orders.
Ant Group’s shares were expected to trade in Hong Kong and Shanghai on November 5, 2020. But it never happened. On November 3, Chinese regulators summoned Ma and told him that Ant’s days of relaxed government oversight were over; they later shut down the IPO saying there were shortcomings in the process. The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping had personally halted the IPO because an outspoken Ma had irked the government. Though he was the poster boy of Chinese entrepreneurship, Ma always had an uneasy relationship with the government, as he seldom hesitated to criticise its policies. He was rarely seen in public after the botched IPO.
この記事は THE WEEK の August 22, 2021 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は THE WEEK の August 22, 2021 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
The female act
The 19th edition of the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival was of the women and by the women
A SHOT OF ARCHER
An excerpt from the prologue of An Eye for an Eye
MASTER OF MAKE-BELIEVE
50 years. after his first book, Jeffrey*Archer refuses to put down his'felt-tip Pilot pen
Smart and sassy Passi
Pop culture works according to its own unpredictable, crazy logic. An unlikely, overnight celebrity has become the talk of India. Everyone, especially on social media, is discussing, dissing, hissing and mimicking just one person—Shalini Passi.
Energy transition and AI are reshaping shipping
PORTS AND ALLIED infrastructure development are at the heart of India's ambitions to become a maritime heavyweight.
MADE FOR EACH OTHER
Trump’s preferred transactional approach to foreign policy meshes well with Modi’s bent towards strategic autonomy
DOOM AND GLOOM
Democrats’ message came across as vague, preachy and hopelessly removed from reality. And voters believed Trump’s depiction of illegal immigrants as a source of their economic woes
WOES TO WOWS
The fundamental reason behind Trump’s success was his ability to convert average Americans’ feelings of grievance into votes for him
POWER HOUSE
Trump International Hotel was the only place outside the White House where Trump ever dined during his four years as president
DON 2.0
Trump returns to presidency stronger than before, but just as unpredictable