Internet tycoon trio are richest men in China: report

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-09-06

Robin Li. (File photo/CNS)

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, is now China's richest person, with net assets of US$21.8 billion, followed closely by two other internet tycoons, Tencent chairperson Ma Huateng and Baidu CEO Robin Li, according to foreign media reports.

Tycoons in the internet industry often started off as the founders of startups, but have now left their days working as impoverished programmers behind them and have become the major beneficiaries of China's internet boom, which has secured a prominent role in the nation's economy.

Industry veterans believe that by taking advantage of the huge domestic market, China's internet industry will likely catch up with its US counterpart over coming years.

Shanghai's China Business News reported that many people in China have made fortunes with the emergence of the internet industry.

Baidu, China's main search engine, was listed on the Nasdaq in 2005, for instance, making some 300 staffers of the company, out of a total of 750, rich overnight, including eight with assets worth 100 million yuan (US$16.3 million), 50 with 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million), and 240 with 1 million yuan (US$163,000), while Alibaba's Hong Kong listing in 2007 made 1000 company staffers rich.

Most of these staffers earned their money from options to subscribe to their companies' shares, granted to them as an incentive. Tencent recently announced a plan to float 19.5 million new shares as incentives for employees, for example. 4,997 staffers at the company will benefit from the new-share issuance, worth 1.9 billion yuan (US$309 million) in total, each gaining shares worth 380,000 yuan (US$62,000) in value on average.

Chen Tianqiao, founder of Shanda Corporation which operates a gaming and publishes books, announced recently that it would give eight of its executives shares worth 100 million yuan (US$16.3 million) each. In 2013, e-commerce giant Jingdong Mall gave out shares as incentives to employees worth 3.8% of its gross profits, another e-commerce firm Jumei gave out shares worth 16.5% of its gross profits in the same year and vip.com gave out 3.1% of its profits by issuing shares.

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