[May 10, 2013] Jack Ma to Resign as Alibaba CEO Today Tweet HANGZHOU, May 10, 2013 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- Jack Ma, CEO and chairman of the board of Chinese ecommerce gant Alibaba Group, is scheduled to step down from the CEO post today. People in the know said that he would announce the resignation in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, today and after that, he would dedicate himself to public welfare and environmental protection. Later, he would take the place of Fred Zuliu Hu, an economist, to serve as director-general of the TMC China. Alibaba performed well in the fourth quarter of 2012 and according to documents Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on May 8, Alibaba saw net profit reach USD 640 million in the quarter, exceeding Tencent Holdings Ltd. (SEHK: 0700) to become the biggest Internet firm in the Chinese mainland in terms of quarterly profitability. Jack said at a public welfare activity in the US not long ago that he was a little old for the Internet industry but still young for other new things. And after that, he donated USD 5 million to the CGCF, a fund established by directors of the TNC. It has become a focal point whether he will build a totally new public welfare ecosystem with his rich experience in the Internet industry as well as outstanding influence. Days ago, Alibaba said that it acquired an about 18 percent stake in Sina Corp. (NSADAQ: SINA) for USD 586 million. People close to it pointed out that actually, it had planned to take a majority, or even a 100 percent, stake in Weibo, the microblogging product of Sina. However, the plan was turned down by Sina as CEO Cao Guowei planned to split Weibo off and then let it debut on the stock market singly one day. Jack said in an interview later that Weibo was a good product and investing in the microblogging product was a very important step taken for the future expansion of it. And instead of shifting the product into an ecommerce platform, it would cooperate with Sina to build the product into a microblogging platform for the future. An insider disclosed that the aim for it to buy into Sina was to perfect its arrangements in the mobile Internet market and in order to sharpen the edge in the field, it launched more related mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in recent years. Alibaba said in a statement on March 11 this year that Lu Zhaoxi would take the place of Jack to serve as the CEO. (USD 1 = CNY 6.14) Source: www.nbd.com.cn (May 10, 2013) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]