The Wealth Of Chinese Tycoons Jack Ma Et Al Begins To Fade Because Their Wealth Has Been Eroded By Almost 25 Percent, But The Founders Of TikTok Are Just Big

Jack Mom. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - A row of conglomerates in China lost a total fortune of 80 billion US dollars throughout 2021. This was due to pressure from Chinese regulators who were considered to be getting tougher.

Quoting Bloomberg, Friday, December 31, the wealth of 10 billionaires who are included in the ranks of the richest people according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index has been eroded by almost a quarter of their total net worth and is the most significant decline since 2012.

Pingduoduo CEO and Founder Colin Huang suffered the heaviest loss of US$42.9 billion or two-thirds of his net worth as e-commerce shares plunged 70 percent.

Meanwhile, the founder of giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Jack Ma, who has recently avoided the media spotlight since the authorities suppressed his business octopus, had to feel his fortune cut by 13 billion US dollars.

Then Didi Global Inc., has just announced the performance of the third quarter of 2021 which slumped due to shrinking revenues, along with the delisting of company shares from New York to Hong Kong.

The company's market value has plunged 60 percent since Chinese officials announced an investigation and asked it to be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), leaving Cheng's fortune at $1.7 billion.

Antitrust scrutiny from Chinese regulators has become increasingly common since the surprise termination of Ant Group Co.'s initial public offering last year.

Tech companies including Alibaba, Tencent Holdings Ltd., Meituan and Pinduoduo, whose valuations have skyrocketed, are now having to cut back after being fined for a variety of reasons ranging from monopolistic practices to disrupt markets to unreported deals.

Uncertainty prevailed even after China rolled out sweeping regulations governing the overseas sale of shares by the country's companies. The government has threatened to increase oversight of overseas IPOs, which have been seen as out of control for two decades.

As previously reported, the Securities and Exchange Commission has just announced plans to issue a new law requiring China to open their books to US scrutiny. Otherwise, they risk being removed from the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq within three years.

Thus, hundreds of Chinese companies are in danger of being delisted from the US market and re-listing in Hong Kong or mainland China.

"The best days for China's technology sector are behind us for now. Without access to American capital markets, the history of China's technology sector will be very different," said Chen Zhiwu, director of Hong Kong University's Asia Global Institute.

Meanwhile, the founder of ByteDance Ltd. aka TikTok., Zhang Yiming, is one who fared differently from other technology businessmen with a profit of 19.5 billion US dollars according to SoftBank Group Corp.'s submission. That's partly because he still keeps TikTok's parent company, isolated from the swings of market turbulence.

However, Zhang has also tried to keep a low profile during the regulatory crackdown. He decided to step down from the CEO chair last month and leave the executive board.

So did Su Hua, co-founder of live streaming app Kuaishou Technology who gave up the CEO role in November, just 9 months after the company's Hong Kong IPO.

In September, JD.com Inc. appointed a new president, said that Chairman Richard Liu will focus on long-term strategy. In addition, the steps to submit to the government can also be seen from the donation activities carried out by a number of Chinese technology giants, such as those carried out by Xiaomi Corp. CEO Lei Jun and Meituan CEO Wang Xing who donated 2.2 billion US dollars and 2.3 billion US dollars. .

As of August, the Chinese billionaire has donated around US$5 billion in 2021, 20 percent more than last year's total.