Jack Ma has always been a frank speaker – at times to his disadvantage. For potential investors in Alibaba, the e-commerce group’s founder was explicit about where they rank among his priorities in a speech in Hong Kong in March.
“Customers are number one, employees number two and shareholders are number three at the critical times,” he said. “If you think about who supports you all the time, investors support you when times are good.”
Now that Alibaba is preparing a hotly anticipated flotation likely to value the group at $60bn, Mr Ma and his senior team are trying to ensure that in difficult times investors will not be able to derail the company from its chosen path.