When Alibaba Group Holding founder Jack Ma gave a harsh assessment of China’s banking system last October, few could have foreseen the company’s downward spiral.
Despite this, the IT behemoth’s market valuation has plummeted by $344 billion in a year, according to Bloomberg statistics, making it the world’s largest wipe-out of shareholder wealth. Beijing banned the IPO of its fin-tech subsidiary Ant Group shortly after the now-famous speech, and has since followed up with a broad crackdown on the country’s most dynamic industries, leading Chinese equities to plummet.
Alibaba’s stock fell from an all-time high that month to a new low three weeks ago in Hong Kong, as Beijing tightened its grip on the company’s activities and demanded a reorganisation of its fintech unit. Despite a 30 percent gain since October 5, the stock is still 43% below its October 2020 high.
As a result of China’s zero-Covid policy, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates active users at the e-commerce behemoth to have surpassed consensus forecasts in the fiscal second quarter. Alibaba is expected to release results on November 5th.
