Jack Ma Is A Smart Businessman Says Analysts

Analysts believe that Jack Ma is playing a smart move by putting in a bid for Hong Kong based newspaper.

It has been on going for quite a while now that the founder of the Chinese tech giant, Alibaba Group Holding, is looking to make its way in the print media business. Jack Ma seems interested in buying the South China Morning Post for a long time now however the deal is still in hanging as only interest has been confirmed from both companies. It is very well known that the Hong Kong based English newspaper is currently struggling in the market therefore analysts believe that Ma’s offer is the only way to save it from crashing down.

Jack Ma has planned to meet the buyout for the Hong Kong based newspaper in order to re launch it in a better way. Not only it will be beneficial for him or Alibaba Group but for the South China Morning Post as well. It is still unclear whether Jack Ma wants to acquire the newspaper company or Alibaba does.

The newspaper was known as one of the most biggest and famous back in the days. It was founded in 1903 and has ‘long given international readers an insider's perspective on Hong Kong and the mainland, providing a window on events from the Mao era to China's 1980s economic awakening and the 1997 handover,’ according to a source.

However it failed to keep up with the media industry and gradually subscribers, sales, and profits have evaporated. Furthermore, the company was hit by a massive downfall, industry wide, in terms of advertising revenues. Since then, South China Morning Post is unable to keep up with its standard business and the transformation phase to the digital age.

Jack Ma is very much interested and sources familiar to the matter state that the talks regarding this deal are in now an advanced phase. Mr. Ma would probably buy a stake in SCMP and several analsyts including Jackson Wong thinks that it is a clever move from the Chinese internet tycoon.

Jackson Wong adds, “He has tons of cash and he knows how to run a business in China very well. Links with Alibaba would also give the paper a necessary boost in terms of its online platform.”

Jack Ma indeed is a smart businessman. He realizes that at this moment, he has all the power to do anything in the Chinese tech sector. Therefore he along with his business, Alibaba, is trying to expand in further business categories as soon as possible. Apart from the e-commerce business, Alibaba’s Aliyun is known as the power house in cloud computing business.

Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, is the richest person in China

 Forbes names Alibaba founder Jack Ma richest person in China and for that matters, Alibaba is also the world’s largest B2B business currently. Jack Ma’s company has clearly shown skyrocketing performances in terms of raising profits and revenues on big margins. When Forbes announced, it was the first time that Jack Ma topped the list of Forbes annual ranking of China’s richest person. BBC reports “The founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, Jack Ma, is China's richest person with a fortune of $19.5bn (£12bn), Forbes Media said. Mr. Ma's wealth more than doubled from last year's $7.1bn after his company's record-setting share sale in September.”

Forbes list showed that Entertainment firm Wanda's chief executive Wang Jianlin was knocked out of first place into fourth as the founder of Alibaba took over. Moreover, the number of billionaires in the country rose up to 242 in 2014 when compared to last year’s 168. Forbes said “Mr. Ma, a former English teacher, started the company 15 years ago. Alibaba is now valued at more than $240bn. It is seen as an industry leader commanding more than 80% of China's significant online e-commerce market. Earlier this year Mr. Ma also topped another rich list, China-based Hurun, which put his wealth at a much higher $25bn.” 

Baidu’s owner, Robin Li who is known as an inventor of China’s Google was ranked second in the list with an estimated net worth of $14.7bn, up from $11.1bn the year before. Ma Huateng, also known as Pony Ma, of Tencent, China's biggest online firm, held third position. The company is the parent of the most popular messaging app in China WeChat.