Jack Ma noticed enjoying golf after weeks out of public view

Jack Ma teed off in current weeks at the Sun Valley Golf Resort, a secluded 27-hole course, human beings acquainted with the depend said Ma’s golf trip provides to latest proof that the outspoken entrepreneur has, for now at least, averted prison time or an authorities seizure of his assets For months, the hypothesis over Jack Ma’s whereabouts has run rampant. Maybe the embattled billionaire had fled to Singapore, some posited. Or he had been positioned beneath residence arrest. Or worse yet, he used to be locked up in a high-security jail. As it turns out, China’s most talked-about multi-millionaire has been working on his golf game.

The co-founder of Ant Group Co. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. teed off in current weeks at the Sun Valley Golf Resort, a secluded 27-hole direction on the Chinese island of Hainan, humans acquainted with the depend said, asking no longer to be recognized discussing non-public information. Located close to the island’s southern tip, the route presents expansive vegetables and wonderful views.

It’s the first recognized Ma sighting due to the fact that the former English trainer joined a live-streamed video chat with rural educators on Jan. 20. While that look helped quiet speak of Ma’s detention, hypothesis about his standing with China’s Communist Party has endured swirling as authorities clamp down on his sprawling commercial enterprise empire Ma’s golf trip provides current proof that the outspoken entrepreneur has -- for now at least -- prevented nightmare eventualities like detention center time or an authorities seizure of his assets. Ant, for instance, has reached a settlement with Chinese authorities on a restructuring format that may want to be formally introduced as quickly as this week, Bloomberg stated on Feb. 3, citing human beings acquainted with the matter.

The deal is a first step on what ought to be a lengthy direction again to a revival of the fintech behemoth’s preliminary public offering, which used to be halted via regulators in November simply days earlier than Ant used to be due to begin buying and selling in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Another nice clue emerged this week from SoftBank Group Corp. founder Masayoshi Son, a longtime pal of Ma’s who was once amongst the earliest traders in Alibaba. Son stated in the course of SoftBank’s quarterly income presentation on Monday that he has remained in contact with Ma. While he didn’t speak about the Chinese billionaire’s whereabouts, Son stated Ma likes to draw and has been sharing his sketches by way of chat. Representatives for Ant, Alibaba, and the Sun Valley Golf Resort declined to comment.

Before the implosion of Ant’s IPO, Ma’s look on a golf path would have attracted little if any attention. The 56-year-old has been progressively relinquishing everyday oversight of his organizations in the latest years, stepping down as govt chairman of Alibaba in September 2019. But even in semi-retirement, Ma has hardly ever stayed out of public view for as long as he did after his now-infamous critique of Chinese economic regulators in October. Within weeks of his speech at the Bund Summit in Shanghai, authorities scuttled Ant’s listing, known as for an overhaul of the agency, and commenced an antitrust probe of Alibaba.

Ma’s prolonged absence in the course of the crackdown dispatched China’s rumor mill into overdrive, with some observers drawing parallels to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Once Russia’s richest man, the Yukos Oil Co. boss spent about a decade in jail on fraud and tax-evasion expenses that he stated have been retribution for difficult the authority of Vladimir Putin. Given the opacity of Xi Jinping’s Communist Party, it’s hard to investigate the endgame for Ma with any certainty. He used to be conspicuously absent from a listing of Chinese tech luminaries posted by way of nation media ultimate week, a signal his standing with the celebration stays diminished.

For Hao Hong, chief strategist at Bocom International in Hong Kong, the most in all likelihood rationalization are that Ma is sincerely laying low as his agencies type thru their problems with regulators. Both Alibaba and Ant have fashioned specific groups to work with the Chinese government, which is nevertheless fine-tuning new guidelines for the country’s fintech and web industries.