Ma’s 7.8% stake in Alibaba gives him a net worth north of $20 billion, making him among the richest in the world.
Lucas Jackson / Reuters
"Before I turned 50 years old my job was making money," Jack Ma told a desk worth of CNBC anchors on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after 8 customers of his Chinese e-commerce giant Aliababa rang the bell to open trading, "But now that I've turned 50 years old, it's helping people in China make money." Ma, who turned 50 lst week, has done that first job better than nearly anyone in the world.
His net worth of $21.9 billion, according to Bloomberg, makes him the 34th wealthiest person in the world, a few billion behind investors like George Soros and Carl Icahn, but just ahead former Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer and Nike founder Phil Knight. Ma, who founded Alibaba in Huangzho, China in 1999 and now serves as its executive chairman, stands to see his net worth go up after Alibaba's stock opens for trading. He's the richest person in China and 12th richest person in technology.
That $21.9 billion is almost sure to go up today. At a price of $88 for Alibaba shares — which is the high end of the opening indicating for where shares will start trading Friday morning — his 193 million shares that make up a 7.8% stake would be worth about $17 billion. The 12.75 million shares he will sell into the offering will bring Ma about $1.1 billion in cash
He would still have a ways to go to match the personal wealth of the founders of heirs to companies he one day hopes to surpass. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's net worth is $29.8 billion and the four richest members of the Walton clan, heirs to Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, are worth a combined $127.8 billion according to Bloomberg. That will not deter Ma, who owns a smaller portion of Alibaba than the Waltons do Wal-Mart. "We hope in the next 15 years, the world changes because of us. We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart."
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