This is a must read for anyone thinking about buying Alibaba stock. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba is a thief. He literally stole Alipay from Yahoo while he supposedly worked under them.
In the lead up to Alibaba’s going public and immediately after, he has bought companies run by his communist party members to whom he owes favors. Those properties are not lucrative; he is literally just paying off old debts and making his communist friends rich.
The son of Wen Jiabao, China’s ex number two, works for a financial firm which is bankrolling Alibaba. Another instance of cronyism if not capitalism. The problem with this is that ‘Grandtheft’ Wen is no longer in power but Xi Jinping is. This poses a problem insofar as if one does not play by Xi’s rules, he gets thrown in jail. Jack Ma seems to be supporting the old guard and may soon be up on corruption charges too.
These thoughts above are a mixture of my own as well as what people in China are saying as well. Alibaba is about as healthy as Beijing air. Buy at your own risk and enjoy your own little taste of China’s Enron.
Great free book here
Peter Thal Larsen (@peter_tl) 9/3/14, 10:42
Everything you ever wanted to know about Alibaba: now in one e-book from @Breakingviews.
bit.ly/BreakingviewsA… pic.twitter.com/ag0TZsmxFV
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