A shower of glitter, a musical thunder and Jack Ma makes a helicopter appear on the stage of a white-heated sports hall in Shenzhen (China).
Descends Scarlett Johansson, scarlet lips and black mini dress.
The scene is unreal.
On November 11, 2016, the founder of Alibaba, the Chinese Amazon, demonstrated his power.
Jack Ma paid the trip for 600 journalists from around the world to attend the new record-breaking Chinese Singles Day on November 11, which became the world's largest business event, crushing Black Friday and Cyber in one day. Monday reunited.
Before the American actress, it was the couple David and Victoria Beckham, the basketball player Kobe Bryant or the pop group OneRepublic who came to establish the global reach of the event: $ 16.38 billion (about 13.3 billion billion euros) of goods sold in 24 hours and which will be shipped at a rate of 52 million parcels per day.
An investigation for "suspicion of monopoly practices"
If the sales record has since been broken each year to reach 74.1 billion dollars (60.3 billion euros) in 2020, Jack Ma had to get off his pedestal.
Officially retired for a year, the founder of this Chinese e-commerce empire Alibaba, listed on the Stock Exchange in Hong Kong and New York, but also logistics, cloud and finance, must weather a violent storm.
Chinese authorities on Thursday said they had launched an investigation against Alibaba for "suspicion of monopoly practices."
The Chinese state administration for market regulation accuses the e-trader of forcing its sellers to sign exclusive contracts, preventing them from selling their products on other platforms.
On the same day, Alibaba shares slipped by 8%, damaging the fortune of Jack Ma, who remains the main shareholder and the richest man in China.
"There is clearly an escalation of coordinated efforts to hamper the empire of Jack Ma, which symbolized the new Chinese entities too big to fail," said Bloomberg, analyst Dong Ximiao of the Institute of Internet finance in Zhongguancun, China's Silicon Valley.
The IPO of the subsidiary Ant canceled
Because this attack by the country's authorities against its most famous entrepreneur is neither the first nor the least.
In addition to the investigation against the parent company, regulators announced Thursday that they had contacted Ant Financial, the financial subsidiary of Alibaba specializing in online and mobile payments (including Alipay), for questions of "supervision".
Two months ago, Beijing had already canceled its IPO.
A thunderclap when it should have been the largest in history, with a fundraising of 34.5 billion dollars (29 billion euros) on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges.
The end-tech would then have been valued at 318 billion dollars (260 billion euros), much more than a traditional bank, whether Chinese or Western.
What are the reasons for the public disgrace of Jack Ma, yet an official member of the Communist Party?
According to many observers, the billionaire would have crossed the line by criticizing the Chinese financial system and demanding a reform of financial regulations, a few days before the IPO of Ant.
Avoid a major crisis in China?
Some economists also see it as an attempt by Chinese President Xi Jinping to avoid a major crisis in the country, already heavily in debt and shaken by the Covid-19 crisis.
To its 900 million users of the Alipay application, Ant Financial also offers loans, investments and insurance.
By forcing it to no longer be just a credit intermediary between its consumers and traditional banks, but to have to hold 30% of the sums loaned, Beijing is preventing it from opening wide the floodgates of online credit.
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A virtuous measure to limit the risk of a Chinese-style “subprime” crisis or an attempt to muzzle the giant before it completely escapes its control?
Certainly a bit of both.
