People who have suffered losses will become more honest.
1
Ali moves frequently
After the shocking remarks at the Bund summit, Ma Yun has long been hidden from the public eye, and even the Ali department he founded has also retracted its sharp edge and become more and more low-key.
But just recently, Ali's big moves have been continuous.
The first thing, about listed companies.
On July 26, Alibaba announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that the Board of Directors has authorized the company's management to apply for a change of listing status on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to a major listing.
Prior to this, Ali was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for secondary listing, that is, transferring NYSE stock depositary receipts to Hong Kong for trading. In other words, the HONG Kong Stock Exchange serves only as a subsidiary channel for Alibaba.
After completing the dual listing process this time, Ali's Hong Kong stocks and US stocks are equivalent to independent listing entities, which can enjoy the incremental funds brought by the Hong Kong Stock Connect, and the valuation will usher in further increases.
More importantly, in the context of the unpredictable relationship between China and the United States, Chinese stocks have always been worried and no one wants to be the next Didi. On this point, Daniel Zhang, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Alibaba, sees it very clearly .
Adding Hong Kong as the first listing place will enable a wider range of diversified investors, especially alibaba digital ecosystem participants in China and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region, to share in Alibaba's growth and future.
More crucially, this sentence -
Hong Kong is also the starting point of Alibaba's globalization strategy, and we have strong confidence in China's economy and future.
The second thing, about partners.
Inside Ali, partners are a very special group, in addition to the founder Ma Yun, Ali's heavyweight elders Cai Chongxin, Peng Lei, Daniel Zhang are all inside. Alibaba Partners meet regularly to discuss group-related matters. In a sense, this is actually equivalent to a company board in the traditional sense.
But in this year's newly disclosed list of Ali partners, 9 people disappeared.
I carefully looked at the list, and among the people who disappeared, in addition to Jiang Fan, who was previously exposed as a derailed Internet celebrity, most of them were executives of Ant Financial, such as Jing Xiandong, chairman and CEO of Ant Financial, Ni Xingjun, CTO, and Zeng Songbai, CPO.
According to Alibaba's latest Partnership Agreement, the partners should be Alibaba Group members. This also means that after the divestiture of the business, the road of "separation" between Ali and Ant has gone farther and farther.
The third thing, about the team.
According to Ryan Capital, Alibaba will carry out a major adjustment to the strategic investment department -
The investment team was reduced from 110 to about 70 people, mainly involving middle and high-level personnel.
This matter was corroborated by the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily", and some people close to Ali admitted that "there is indeed this matter, mainly for market reasons", and the report also revealed a message -
Now in charge of Alibaba's strategic investment department is Xu Hong, Ali's CFO, and the original head, Wu Wei, is basically in retirement.
At almost the same time, Ali made three big moves: double listing, partner shuffling, and reducing the investment department, this Internet giant, what did it smell?
2
Ali system, is constantly "getting smaller"
Before answering this question, let's first look at the changes in Ali's investment strategy over the years.
In 2013, Alibaba underwent a major organizational change, established 25 business units, and all of its investment business was concentrated in the "Alibaba Group Investment Department". It was also from then on that Ali completely transformed into a strategic investor.
According to the statistics of New Wealth, in these years, Ali has built an ecosystem of 10 trillion market value through more than 500 billion funds, which has expanded 10 times in 5 years. The scale of this investment territory even exceeds that of a first-tier city, and it should be known that the total market value of listed companies controlled by the local government of Shanghai is only 2.8 trillion yuan.
In addition, the statistics of new wealth also show an unknown investment map -
Among the 586 unicorn companies in the world, the Ali family (Ali, Ant, Yunfeng) invested in 44, accounting for 1/13.
At that time, Alibaba's own market value was 5.6 trillion yuan, the total market value of the listed companies participating in the holding was 4 trillion yuan, and the total valuation of the invested unicorns was 1.2 trillion yuan, a total of 10.8 trillion yuan.
▲ Source new wealth
What is more noteworthy is that Ali's capital power is all over the media industry. In June 2021, according to the statistics of Mustang Finance, since 2012, by virtue of direct, indirect, affiliated companies, individual shareholdings and many other methods, Ali's media companies that have invested in shares include:
93.
Because of this, Ma Yun has also been called China's Murdoch by some people, saying that he is a Chinese media tycoon.
This huge investment map of the Ali department can also be seen through the Ant Group.
According to public information, as of August 31, 2020, Ant Group has made nearly 200 investments, covering more than 20 fields such as travel, real estate, catering, media, and artificial intelligence, with a total investment amount of up to 300 billion yuan.
▲Ant Financial Chinese mainland investment territory, source new era securities
It is no exaggeration to say that the capital tentacles of the Ali system have extended to all corners of our food, clothing, housing and transportation. But what you may not expect is that this giant is actively getting smaller.
Between 2015 and 2021, Alibaba made an average of about 44 investments per year, and in 2018, it reached an all-time high of 70 transactions totaling $54 billion, according to Dealogic data. But since 2022, Ali —
Only 9 investments were made, or about $5.2 billion.
This is even more evident in Ant Group. IT Orange previous data showed that Ant Group participated in a total of 191 investment companies. In 2018, it even participated in 65 investment events, with a total investment of 78.945 billion yuan.
But by 2021, Ant Group has participated in only 20 investment events, with a total investment amount of 18.227 billion yuan.
Less than a third of what it was in 2018.
▲Ant Group's 2014-2022 investment data, source IT Orange
In addition to reducing new investments, the Ali department is also reducing the existing investment territory -
It withdrew some or all of its investments in Light Media, Mango Super Media, 36Kr, Caixin Media, Boya Tianxia, etc., and the investment amount fell by 27.4% year-on-year.
Even the core business of Ant Group has been separated from the original ant system and put into the Ant Gold Company.
In this new company, the state's equity share has increased to 25%, ranking second largest, and the ants are no longer just Ma Yun's ants.
There is no doubt that the investment map of the Ali system is consciously shrinking.
3
The end of the internet is lending?
Ali's actions are not accidental. Under the supervision of anti-monopoly, the investment of Internet giants such as Ali needs to be declared to ensure that there is no monopoly risk.
More importantly, the arrival of a series of penalties after the Bund incident, ali department is also afraid -
Ma Yun was interviewed by four ministries and commissions, Ant Group's IPO was suspended, Ali was fined 18.2 billion yuan by the anti-monopoly investigation, and Lakeside University was rumored to stop enrolling...
In just half a year, the godfather of e-commerce fell to the altar and was silent. Just this month, Ali also received five fines from the State Administration for Market Regulation for monopolistic behavior, fining him 2.5 million yuan.
Facing the same problem, it is not only the Ali family. Before that, the media found that -
Almost all internet manufacturers have a lending business.
From Alipay, Weibo, Meituan, Ele.me, to iQiyi, Mango TV, WPS, Beauty Camera, Mafengwo, JD.com, Baidu... Those familiar apps want to lend you money.
One of the most interesting is Hungry, not only has its own online lending platform, but also helps gome, Suning, 360, Paipai loan and other third-party loan products to drain the flow, is really a loan is stronger than a loan.
There is also the owner of the fun shop Luo, who started with campus loans, and now enters the live broadcast to buy vegetables, but according to the investigation of first finance, behind his pre-made dish business, it is also a loan to franchisees.
These online loans, the interest rate is not low. Taking the 360 IOU as an example, according to the previous report of Xinliu Finance, there have been user complaints that the 3200 yuan loan applied for according to the "30-day interest-free" application on the 360 IOU needs to be repaid in the case of early repayment, a total of 3824 yuan needs to be repaid.
According to IRR calculations, the aprarian interest rate on the loan is already as high as 237%. On the Black Cat complaint platform, complaints about the "high interest rate trap" of 360 IOUs can be seen everywhere. There are even complainants who say —
Charging 12 months of interest in just 3 hours is even more terrible than usury.
Borrowers who are tormented by high interest rates will face violent collection when they have the signs of wanting to pay their debts. Some netizens also summarized the dunning routine of 360 IOUs: go to the home to collect, scare, harass phone calls, manual non-negotiation and non-processing, and interest rise vigorously.
Behind the ability to lend heavily, it is precisely because these Internet platforms have seized the "digital mountain" early and have monopoly strength in their respective fields.
If the territory of these Internet giants is allowed to develop, in one investment and merger after another, ordinary people's time, information and money will accelerate to them.
People suddenly found that Internet giants used e-commerce to bring down physical small shops, used online ride-hailing cars to grab taxi jobs, kidnapped restaurant owners with takeaway traffic entrances, and forced small market vendors to die with food delivery services under capital subsidies.
In the end, the small bosses, the small traders, the small businessmen who are squeezed out... Became a courier, a delivery man, a Didi driver and a food delivery man.
Everyone lost everything and became the hit workers of the Internet giant.
4
End
Speaking of which, the Internet giants were once the "hope" in the eyes of the Chinese people.
Whether it is the convenience brought by shopping on e-commerce platforms or the changes brought about by payment methods, they have won the support of public opinion to a large extent. But when they become omnipresent monopolies and lenders, people become wary.
Countries are also beginning to find that the profits of these internet giants come more from "rents" than from real social value growth. Some time ago, there was a very hot chart, and the market value of an Apple far exceeded the top 100 technology and Internet companies in China. This is worth reflecting on by the giants.
The top management also saw this, starting from the stranding of ant listings, one anti-monopoly hammer after another, successively smashed into the Internet giants. Just yesterday, the high-level meeting gave a clear direction -
It is necessary to promote the healthy and sustainable development of platform economy norms, complete special rectification of platform economy, implement normalized supervision of platform economy, and focus on launching a number of "green light" investment cases.
The signal released is very obvious -
By the end of the year, it is necessary to complete the rectification of the Internet industry.
To set up a "traffic light" for capital is to strengthen the effective supervision of capital according to law and prevent the barbaric growth of capital. It is foreseeable that in the next six months, it will be a sprint period for Internet anti-monopoly.
Looking back at Ali's recent big moves: double listing, partner shuffling, and reduction of the investment department, in fact, they all point to the same goal -
Embrace regulation, respond to calls, and reduce monopolies.
This time, Ma Yun and Ali, who smelled the signal, finally laid out a layout in advance. At this moment, I have a deeper understanding of Cao Dewang's words——
To do business in China, you must understand politics.