Jack.jpg (Photo : Reuters)
Although many people wish for financial riches, Jack Ma, who is now worth $28.6 billion and was crowned Asia's wealthiest person on Friday, is a reluctant billionaire.
He said to the CNBC television network in November that he never aspired to attain immense personal wealth, does not wish to be in such a position, and called the status a "great pain."
Ma sits in the throne formerly occupied by 81-year-old Hong Kong property and shipping tycoon Li Ka-shing, who was called "Superman" for his deft investment abilities.
Ma's great pain is only intensifying, as Friday's Bloomberg Billionaires Index is the latest in a series of 2014 milestones. The Alibaba Group he founded and chairs was responsible for the most valuable IPO in stock market history in September, raising an astronomical figure of $25 billion. Then, on Wednesday, Ma was announced as one of the runner-ups in TIME magazine's Person of the Year award.
In terms of the performance of Alibaba, the corporation registered a third-quarter net profit of $1.1 billion, while the revenue of its two online marketplaces rose by almost 54 percent from the same quarter of last year to $2.7 billion.
The Group seems to be immune to financial failure, as it rejuvenated the Singles' Day tradition--a Chinese celebration that is typically humble--on Nov. 11 and sold 42,000 brands to generate revenue of 57.1 billion yuan ($9.2 billion).
Although Ma handed the chief executive position at Alibaba to Lu Zhaoxi in 2013, he remains its chairman, with a 6.3-percent stake in a $259-billion business entity that contributes $16.3 billion to his wealth portfolio.
Ma also owns close to half of Alibaba's Ant Financial Services Group, which is responsible for online payment service Alipay.
In response to Bloomberg's Index, a representative of Li passed on praise for Ma's new standing, stating that the tycoon is always pleased to see such success.
Alibaba's extraordinary journey will most likely continue, as the economic forecast for China is very healthy.
Financial analyst Francis Ying explained to Bloomberg on Friday: "The billionaires in China are growing their wealth faster because China's economy is still developing, with plenty of room for growth."
