Jack Ma to unveil succession plan, not imminent retirement: Report
BEIJING Alibaba co-founder and chairman Jack Ma will unveil a succession plan today, reported the South China Morning Post (SCMP), with a company spokesman denying a New York Times (NYT) report that he would retire.
SCMP, which is owned by Alibaba, said China's most famous tech billionaire will "unveil a succession strategy" today - his 54th birthday - but remain the company's executive chairman.
NYT ran an article on Friday last week, based on an interview with Mr Ma, saying the former teacher planned to use his birthday to announce his retirement as chairman of Alibaba to focus on philanthropy. It quoted Mr Ma as saying the decision was "the beginning of an era".
But an Alibaba spokesman told SCMP that the NYT report "was taken out of context and factually wrong".
"An Alibaba spokesman said Mr Ma remains the company's executive chairman and will provide transition plans over a significant period of time," the SCMP wrote.
The paper added that today's succession strategy is part of a plan "for grooming a generation of younger executives to take over the reins" of the company.
Ms Eileen Murphy, a spokesman for NYT, said the newspaper stood by its report.
Mr Ma was an English teacher before starting Alibaba in 1999 and built it into a multibillion-dollar Internet colossus.
His own worth has soared along with that of the company, which has added cloud computing, films and e-payment to its growing portfolio and was valued at US$420.8 billion (S$580.2) when the stock market closed on Friday.
The NYT report surprised the global business community because of Mr Ma's youth, especially in China where it is not unusual for tycoons to remain in place into their eighties.
The SCMP report ran quotes from Mr Ma, but they did not address when exactly he would retire. Mr Ma said he met with company executives 10 years ago to work out "what Alibaba would do without me".
"Anybody who knows me knows I embrace the future. This is not about retiring, stepping away, or backing off. This is a systematic plan," the paper quoted Mr Ma as saying. - AFP
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