Liu Qiangdong, the founder of Jingdong, seems to be turning around after 2 years of silence due to his involvement in a sex scandal case.
While Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba founder Jack Ma is being purged and his whereabouts are unknown, another e-commerce giant, Jingdong founder Liu Qiangdong, appears to be in a position to turn around after more than 2 years of silence. It is reported that, in order to gain the trust of the Communist Party of China (CPC) senior management, Liu not only installed a party secretary with no professional experience to take over as CEO of financial technology, but even got a reward from the CPC central bank, and Jingdong became the first e-commerce platform to access the digital yuan; its three companies were spun off and listed one after another.
Since August 2018, Jingdong founder Liu Qiangdong has been briefly detained by U.S. police after being involved in a sex scandal case and has since kept a low profile to avoid the limelight, according to the South China Morning Post. Now, Liu appears to have shaken off the scandal case to demonstrate absolute control over Jingdong.
According to the mainland media on December 30, 2020, Jingdong Group announced on the same day that Wang Zhenhui, the former CEO of Jingdong Logistics, resigned as CEO of Jingdong Logistics, and the board of directors has appointed Yu Rui, the former chief human resources officer of Jingdong, as CEO of Jingdong Logistics. at the same Time, Jingdong Digital Technology appointed Chen Shengqiang as vice chairman of Jingdong Digital Technology and chief of staff of Jingdong Group; as well as appointed Li Yayun, the former chief compliance officer of Jingdong Group, as CEO of Jingdong Digital Technology.
In the future, there will be at least three listed companies in the “Jingdong system”, with Jingdong Digital, Jingdong Logistics and Jingdong health becoming the three “unicorns” of Jingdong.
South Morning reported that a source familiar with the company’s internal politics revealed that the “three heads” of the Jingdong Group rose to prominence after Liu Qiangdong’s involvement in a sex scandal in the United States. (This refers to Wang Zhenhui, Chen Shengqiang and Xu Lei, the head of Jingdong’s retail business). Now, Liu’s move has made it clear that “he is still in control of the whole group”.
In addition to the return of group power to Liu, Beijing‘s top brass also seems to be deliberately easing up on the Jingdong Group, keeping Jingdong and Liu’s situation from falling into the same predicament as Jack Ma and Alibaba.
As the Communist Party’s central bank (People’s Bank of China) is testing the digital yuan, Jingdong became the first e-commerce platform to access the digital yuan, while Ant Group and Tencent were not treated as such.
In addition, three of Jingdong’s companies have announced their IPOs one after another. South Morning reported that the logistics arm of Jingdong Group has recently submitted an IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which is rumored to raise $4 billion and is expected to go public in the second quarter of this year. Earlier, Jingdong Health raised $3.5 billion in an initial public offering in December last year, and earlier, in June last year, its parent company raised $4.5 billion in the secondary market.
In contrast to the predicament of Jack Ma’s Ant Group, which is heavily regulated by Chinese Communist Party regulators, Jingdong Group founder Liu Qiangdong has made a comeback and appears to be the biggest winner in China’s tech industry, the report said.
According to the Chinese media, Alibaba’s U.S. stock market is currently worth $732.7 billion, while Jingdong’s is $160.3 billion, which seems like a big gap, but if you include Jingdong Health, Jingdong Digital and Jingdong Logistics, the gap is not so big. These three companies combined are still worth at least $150 billion, meaning that Jingdong’s total market value should be around $300 billion.
On June 3, 2018, mainland netizens posted a message showing Liu and Tencent founder Ma Huateng in Yan’an, dressed in Communist Party-era Red Army uniforms. The French broadcaster quoted comments saying that it seems that the form is very dangerous and how unsettling the hearts of China’s big capitalists are. Then came the news that Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba and other leading Chinese Internet companies had set up party branches one after another more than a decade ago. The report also quoted Jingdong Group CEO Liu Qiangdong as saying that the group already has 162 party branches and more than 12,000 Communist Party members.
In 2018, Ma Huateng Liu Qiangdong suddenly showed up in Yan’an.
Recent Comments