Billionaires: Ant IPO can make Alibaba's reclusive co-founder $5bn richer

Lucy Peng has been dubbed Alibaba Group Holding’s most influential woman.

The co-founder of the e-commerce giant rarely speaks in public and is little known beyond China, but over the past 2 decades, she’s played an integral role guiding Jack Ma’s empire. Ms Peng, 47, helped create Alibaba’s recruiting department, was Ant Group’s leader and is currently executive chairwoman of Lazada Group, the South-East Asian e-commerce platform.

The former finance teacher can be emerging as one of the wealthiest persons within the Alibaba ecosystem and among the richest women on earth. Ms Peng holds a 1.7 per cent stake in Ant, the FinTech firm that’s set to improve $34.5 billion in a dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong that could take its valuation to $320bn. She’ll be worth about $5bn, based on the pricing of the original public offering, in line with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“Jack famously considers women an integral asset in his success; Lucy is the embodiment of this,” said Duncan Clark, author of Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built and chairman of investment consulting firm BDA China. “That’s why she’s been deployed on new ventures at critical moments of the company’s development. She’s been very focused on the main element behind-the-scenes work, especially on recruiting and, as such, has earned and retained the trust of Jack.”

Women represent almost 40 per cent of Alibaba Partnership members, the elite group that has the power to look for the management’s gross annual cash bonuses. Along with Ms Peng, six other female leaders are at risk of billionaire status because of Ant’s record IPO, with a combined stake value of $14.5bn.

China has been the key engine for self-made female billionaires recently. Among the world’s 500 richest people, two-thirds of the 15 women who created their own fortunes are Chinese entrepreneurs, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.

Ms Peng met Mr Ma through her husband if they worked together at China Pages, a Yellow Pages-like online directory Mr Ma set up before Alibaba.

Ms Peng served as chief persons officer for almost all of her time at the e-commerce giant before taking the role of Alipay’s chief executive in 2010 2010 to enhance the app’s payment process and user experience. The platform, owned by Ant, were only available in 2004 as an escrow service for buyers and sellers on Mr Ma’s shopping site Taobao.com since it competed with EBay for market share in China.

Now Ant is about to sell shares in the world’s largest IPO. Ms Peng, who owns the largest individual Ant stake after Mr Ma, and Mr Ma himself aren’t the only kinds winning big. At least 17 other persons have become billionaires from the listing.

Pinterest co-founders Paul Sciarra, Evan Sharp and Ben Silbermann added $750 million to their collective fortunes last week after the company reported quarterly sales that beat analysts’ expectations.

Strong advertiser demand and a growing user base helped raise the scrapbooking company’s income by 58 per cent from a year earlier.

The share price jump means the three men are actually worth a combined $5.8bn, in line with the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a lot more than double what it had been three months ago.

San Francisco-based Pinterest is one of the companies benefiting as consumers increasingly turn online for social engagement, entertainment and communication. The world’s wealthiest tech billionaires have become $409bn richer year-to-date, a bigger gain than those in virtually any other industry, based on the Bloomberg index.

Founded in '09 2009, the image-sharing site now has a lot more than 400 million monthly active users.

Leader Mr Silbermann has pocketed $115m this season selling Pinterest stock through a prearranged trading plan, according to data published by Bloomberg. He currently holds 51 million shares valued at $3.2bn and received $46m in pay and stock awards in 2019, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Hasso Plattner, chairman and co-founder of SAP, bought shares worth almost $300m in the German software company after a once-in-a-generation price slide triggered when management dumped its profit targets.

The 76-year-old billionaire bought shares worth €248.5m ($294 million) at the average price of €101, according to a regulatory filing.

SAP shares slumped by 20 % after leader Christian Klein ditched his “ambition” for income to expand steadily through 2023 and lowered the outlook because of this year as a result of impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The share slide erased $35bn from SAP’s market value and knocked the business off its perch as Europe’s most valuable technology company, where it had been ousted by Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML.

Mr Plattner used a 5.89 % stake in SAP, making him the company’s major individual shareholder, according to Refinitiv data.

Tesla’s Elon Musk collected the fourth tranche of his moonshot award last month, bringing his aggregate haul to $11.8bn.

The business recently surpassed the performance thresholds for market value and adjusted earnings before adjusted interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, according to a regulatory filing, unlocking yet another 8.44 million options for the billionaire leader.

Carrying out a surge in Tesla’s stock, Mr Musk in May collected the first tranche of the massive options award he was granted in 2018. He received the second and third tranches in July and September, respectively.

Mr Musk’s complete compensation package - the most significant corporate pay deal ever struck between a chief executive and a board of directors - includes about 101 million options, put into 12 tranches, that could yield Mr Musk a lot more than $50bn if all goals are met, according to the electric car maker’s estimates. He’s permitted to exercise the options as they’re unlocked, but can’t sell the shares for five years.

Mr Musk’s fortune has a lot more than quadrupled this year to exceed $100bn, the largest gain of anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the world’s fourth-richest person.