Beijing’s Jack Ma Kabuki Play Continues… Is Alibaba A Value Play?

Beijing’s Jack Ma Kabuki Play Continues… Is Alibaba A Value Play?

HANGZHOU, CHINA - JULY 12: Jack Ma, founder of the Alibaba Group attends the 2017 forum on rural ... [+] headmasters on July 12, 2017 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province of China. The twenty rural schoolmasters from western China selected by the Jack Ma Foundation were awarded 500, 000 yuan (about US$73, 518) each one to support the rural education in China. (Photo by Wang He/Getty Images) A year ago this week, Jack Ma was worth something like $50 billion, the richest man in China, the most famous man in China, a media star, cultural phenomenon. His first company – Alibaba – was worth well over $800 Billion (more than Facebook, or Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway). His second company – the Ant Group – was preparing to execute the largest public offering in history. The projected post-IPO value of Ant, combined with the value of Alibaba on the New York exchange, would have been more than twice as much as the four giant state banks of China put together. Jack Ma stood astride the Chinese financial industry. In recent English usage, "disappear" – which is normally an intransitive verb – has become a transitive verb, taking a direct object, a victim.