The last time Alibaba made a radical move to reorganise its business the Chinese tech group set in motion a train of events that led to a clash with regulators, the disastrous cancellation of what would have been the world’s biggest initial public offering and a crackdown by Beijing on Big Tech.
This time around Alibaba hopes to please investors and Beijing bureaucrats with a major restructuring into six business units, heralding the biggest shake-up of China’s best-known ecommerce company since Jack Ma founded it 24 years ago.
Back in 2020, a speech by Ma attacking China’s financial watchdogs and banks led to the abandonment of its blockbuster $37bn initial public offering of Ant Group, its fintech affiliate. It was a trigger for President Xi Jinping’s campaign to reduce the influence of the country’s largest tech companies.