Ant Group, the financial unit of Alibaba Group, which owns the AliPay payment system, announced changes in its shareholding structure and the voting rights.

After the changes the founder of the company Jack Ma will no longer control Ant Group.

RB.ru reports that currently the number of independent directors in the company has been increased to four. Ant Group plans to add a fifth independent director, after which independent directors will comprise a majority of their board.

The exercise of voting rights of major shareholders will also change: from Jack Ma to each of ten individuals, including the founder, representative of the management and employees. In fact, this will deprive Ma of control over the Ant Group.

Currently Ma and three investors control 53.46% of Ant’s shares. According to Bloomberg’s calculations, after the changes Ma will have only 6.2%.

According to the announcement, the decision has been made in order to optimize corporate governance and to align the voting interests of shareholders with their economic interests.



To remind, recently fintech giant Ant Group has received approval to increase the amount of registered capital for the company’s consumer unit. The unit was created in 2021 as part of the restructuring of the fintech company following the unexpected suspension of Ant Group’s IPO by Chinese regulators at the end of 2020.

In late November Financial Times reported that Alibaba’s founder, billionaire Jack Ma moved from China and lives in Japan for almost six months. It was also reported that Ma stepped down as head of a leading business group.

The partner of Fintech section is