Tag Archives: Jack Ma

Huayi's Chairman Joins Ranks Of China Movie Billionaires; Stock Climbs To Record (Update)

By Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff (Updates earlier post with details and today’s stock close)  Wang Zhongjun, the chairman of Shenzhen-listed film maker Huayi Brothers Media, has joined the ranks of China’s movie industry billionaires. Huayi’s shares have climbed by more than 160% in the past year amid rising prospects for home-grown entertainment industry content in China.  They gained 5.5% today at close at an all-time high of 42.2 yuan. Founded in Beijing in1994, Huayi produces films, television programs, music and other content.  Wang, who also goes by the English name Dennis, owns a 26% stake in Huayi that is worth more than $1 billion; his brother, Wang Zhonglei, whose English name is James, holds 8% of the company. Jack Ma, the chairman of Alibaba Group and one of China’s richest Internet entrepreneurs, owns 5% of Huayi. Huayi’s stock has soared after the company last month projected net profit in the first half of 2013 would as much as triple from $17 million a year earlier on good box-office income. Investors have also bid up its shares after the company said on July 24 it would acquire 50.9% of mobile game developer Yinhan Technology for the equivalent of $109.5 million. …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Alibaba Promotes Finance Officers in Leadership Change

By Kevin Chen, The Motley Fool

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Alibaba Group will appoint Maggie Wu — who has been with the company since 2007 — as chief financial officer, effective May 10. At that time, the e-commerce giant’s current CFO, Joe Tsai, will become executive vice chairman. 

After joining Alibaba in July 2007 as CFO of Alibaba.com, Wu became deputy CFO for all of Alibaba. She is credited with helping institute the financial systems and organization that led to Alibaba.com going public in November 2007. She also led the company’s privatization of that subsidiary last year. Since then, she has been responsible for Alibaba’s finance organization — from operations finance and reporting to internal control and tax. In her new role, Wu will be responsible for overseeing corporate finance and audit in addition to her current duties.

Tsai will continue to oversee Alibaba’s strategic investments and share responsibilities for maintaining external relations with financial and other key constituents.

While working as CFO, Alibaba says, Tsai drove every round of the company’s private financings — from early rounds of venture funding to Yahoo!’s $1 billion investment in the company in 2005. More recently, in 2012, he led $2.5 billion of debt and equity financing to take Alibaba.com private. He has also worked on bigger company deals in the past, like repurchasing $7.6 billion of its shares from Yahoo!. Tsai is one of Alibaba’s 18 co-founders and a member of the board of directors since the company’s inception.

The new reorganization comes with a change at the CEO level. On May 10, Jonathan Lu will take over the CEO position from Jack Ma.

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The article Alibaba Promotes Finance Officers in Leadership Change originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Kevin Chen has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/11/alibaba-promotes-finance-officers-in-leadership-ch/

Getting Away From Crappy, Small Content: LongTail Video

By Rebecca Fannin, Contributor

  Continuing on my journey of exploration outside China (a brief detour),  I recently met with Dave Otten, the CEO of a New York-based startup with the intriguing name of LongTail Video. We met in a trendy café on W. 18th Street in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. Over coffee,  David described what LongTail Video does and how it has ramped up since 2007 into a profitable, 30-person shop that was recently lead financed with $5 million from Greycroft Partners. Interviewing Dave and hearing his startup story reminded me of reporting on the first generation of Chinese Internet startups, Joe Chen of Renren, Peggy YuYu of Dangdang, and Jack Ma of Alibaba — back before they became well-known entrepreneurs.  Having followed the venture capital trail from Silicon Valley to China and on to India and other startup hubs such as London, what I’m observing today among the entrepreneurs, VCs and angel investors in New York is an energy and buzz similar to what put these other places on the tech map. It’s little wonder that Dave McClure is opening a new co-working space for his 500 startups in the Flatiron district! What follows is a few highlights of my conversation with Dave, who with an MBA from Harvard, entrepreneurial experience, ample finance, and career stripes at Nielsen and About.com, seems destined to become a player. LongTail Video is one of the startups we’ll be featuring at our digital media innovators forum March 21 in New York. Q. How did come up with the idea for LongTail Video? A. I began working nights with my partner on developing an online video site and our idea was that it was all about the advertising side, how to help publishers make money from video. YouTube had just been acquired by Google, and we focused on how to make it easier to deliver ads into the beginning and end of a video stream. Q. What was the first breakthrough? A. We had no money at the time and we were developing this as a side project. It was technically complicated to integrate the video player with the portal site. We saw that many publishers were using the same software, JW Player. When we saw this, we went to the founder and said, ‘can we buy you?’ We bought the player for stock. Buying the player was the iceberg. There was a whole lot more going on under the water level to support how publishers can integrate the player with their content management system and support all file formats. So today we have this massive video player, used by 2 million domains. Q. How do you make money? A. It took some time for the video ad market to take off. We make money from an annual fee to license the video player software, sales to publishers, and we’ve built in a customized content management system that we offer and we can provide analytics for publishers on their video ads so they can better monetize them.  We expect revenues to reach $10 million to $15 million this year and we’ve been profitable since 2010. Q. Why did you raise venture capital at this …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Alibaba picks 'low-profile' exec to replace Jack Ma as CEO

alibaba logo

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group named its new CEO to replace Jack Ma, choosing from within its ranks long-time company executive Jonathan Lu, who will start in his new role on May 10.

Alibaba announced the appointment on Monday. Ma said in January he would step down from his position as CEO to usher in the next generation of company leaders.

Lu, 43, is currently Alibaba’s chief data officer and joined the company just a year after it was founded in 1999. He has served in management roles with several businesses within the group, including its sourcing platform Alibaba.com, online payment service Alipay, and e-commerce retailer Taobao.

“He’s been well-groomed for the role in that he’s served in a variety of different capacities for the last 12 years,” said Mark Natkin, managing director for Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting, who was not surprised by the appointment.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Forbes China 30 Under 30: Meet 30 Young Entrepreneural Disruptors In China

By Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff Long gone are the days when China’s Internet pioneers such as Jack Ma could be labeled young. The 48-year-old e-commerce titan, who ranks No. 395 with wealth of $3.4 billion on the 2013 Forbes Billionaires List published last week,  has already announced plans to step down as CEO of his Alibaba Group and move younger people up the company’s management ranks.  (See related post here.)   …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest

Alibaba's Billionaire Founder Jack Ma To Step Down As CEO

By Simon Montlake, Forbes Staff Jack outlines his strategy (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife) Jack Ma, the English teacher who built Alibaba into China‘s dominant e-commerce firm, has told employees that he will step down as CEO in May. Ma said that he would continue to serve full-time as executive chairman and oversee the company’s […]
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest