The detention of a man with the surname ‘Ma’ in China led to losses of $26 billion for Jack Ma’s Alibaba. Read ahead to find out what exactly happened.
Confusion reaction: ‘Ma’ detained in China
In Hangzhou City, China, a man with the last name ‘Ma’ was detained based “on suspicion of colluding with outside forces and trying to subvert the state and split the country”. Coincidentally, it is the same city where Alibaba is based in. On April 25, CCTV, China’s state broadcaster, stated that the suspect was detained as a part of “compulsory measures”.
However, netizens soon assumed the man was none other than Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba. The market shares of the company dipped by 9.4 percent in Hong Kong. The e-commerce giant lost about $26 billion in market value minutes following the news.
Alibaba shares dip and rise after the news
Later that the Global Times clarified that the man was not Jack Ma. The accused, indeed, was an IT department director born in 1985, whose Chinese name has three characters. While, Jack Ma’s Chinese name, Ma Yun, has only two characters and he was born in the 1960s.
Following the clarification, Alibaba’s shares started rising. Reports revealed that shares “closed the trading day in Hong Kong just 0.83 percent lower”. “The clarifications led to a rebound, with Alibaba recovering the majority of its losses by the day’s end,” reported CNN. Alibaba has been under high scrutiny by Beijing following Ma’s controversial speech two years ago, Chinese regulators started reportedly probing into the firm’s practices. Additionally, Beijing also fined the empire $2.8 billion in April for its market dominance. The founder has faded from public life and has been keeping a low profile since then.