Skip to main content

PAUSE: What does an English teacher know about math? Plenty, if your name is Jack Ma.


Today, Jack raised $4.5 billion (the largest private tech investment ever) for Ant Financial: A company he created in December 2014. The company has gone from zero to $60 billion in value in just 16 months.
Jack Ma has never taken no for an answer. In September, 2014, when he was not able to list his company, Alibaba, in Hong Kong, and with China banning any foreign ownership of its companies, Jack got around the rules by setting up a Cayman Island shell corporation which would receive a percentage of the profits of Alibaba.
He then listed the Cayman Island company on the New York Stock Exchange, raising $25 billion in the largest IPO in history - without giving any of the shares in his China company away.
Before the listing, he took the payment side of the business, Alipay, and moved it into a separate, private company that he controlled, called Ant Financial. As Alibaba has been making headlines over the last year, Ant Financial has been quietly growing as Jack’s second billion dollar business.
Ant Financial now reaches 450 million users (More than the population of the US and UK combined), and has given out 20 million loans to entrepreneurs in China. Alibaba receives 37.5% of the profits from Ant Financial, but does not own any of it. Jack has managed to spin the business off entirely from Alibaba, and then grow it alongside Alibaba while entirely under his personal control, from zero to $60 billion in value.
This has allowed him to pursue his vision of helping the small guys while raising the money he needs from the financial markets and without losing control or giving away any ownership.
Jack’s next step? The former English Teacher plans to list Ant Financial on the China stock market later this year, which is likely to double his current net worth of $22 billion.
While too many entrepreneurs get caught up in how much of their pie to give away, Jack understands that when you own the bakery, you can always make another pie.
How can you create partnerships and raise financing creatively, while keeping true to your vision? How can you organise your own resources smarter? Take a tip from Jack, and never take no for an answer.
“They called me ‘Crazy Jack’. I think crazy is good. We’re crazy, but we’re not stupid.” ~ Jack Ma

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Starting a Business in Ugand PART 1-COMPANY REGISTRATION

Below is a detailed summary of the bureaucratic and legal hurdles faced by entrepreneurs wishing to incorporate and register a new firm in Uganda. It examines the procedures, time and cost involved in launching a commercial or industrial firm with between 10 and 50 employees and start-up capital of 10 times the economy's per-capita gross national income. This information was collected as part of the Doing Business project , which measures and compares regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small- to medium-sized domestic business in 190 economies. The most recent round of data collection was completed in June 2016. Standardized Company Legal form: Private Limited Company Paid-in minimum capital requirement: UGX 0 City: Kampala No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs 1 Submit the Name Reservation Form to the assessment window of t...
Post a Comment
ahabwecollins.blogspot.com

The most successful African entrepreneurs of the future __Think beyond borders of all kinds.

By Dr Strive Masiyiwa Amongst the many things I wanted to achieve with this platform was to get young African entrepreneurs to reach out and start talking to each other, doing business deals, and partnering to find solutions to Africa's many other challenges. I'm not sure if you saw this comment I made during our discussion on partnerships a while back: "Afterthought: Here is a secret! The most successful Africans in future are those who master the ability to partner with Africans from other African countries... Shhhh! (Keep this secret to yourself, because there are many enemies out there who will try and stop you from believing this.)" As an entrepreneur, there are huge benefits for you if Africa can shift its economic narrative to what I sometimes refer to as "Africanization." We as Africans need to open up this continent to development by Africans. However, this should not be to the exclusion of working with partners from other parts of the worl...
Post a Comment
ahabwecollins.blogspot.com

10 Daily habits of most successful entrepreneurs.

“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” ~ John C Maxwell How many of these top 10 entrepreneur habits do you have today? What good habits can you start and what bad habits can you stop to change your results tomorrow? 1) Create a routine - Set a rhythm to connect to the big 5 P’s every day: Purpose (why?), Products (what?), People (who?), Processes (when?), Productivity (how?) 2) Keep the mornings for the toughest projects - Start with what’s most important, not what’s most urgent. Make yourself 80% proactive, 20% reactive. 3) Work out & meditate - Richard Branson says the #1 thing he does to improve his business success is exercise. The universe will only look after you as well as you look after yourself. 4) Give a head start to tomorrow today - Design each day ahead of time and ask the same question Steve Jobs asked: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want t...
Post a Comment
ahabwecollins.blogspot.com