We know that a lot of things have been going on at Alibaba ever since the founder Jack Ma returned to China earlier this year after being away for almost an year and also announced plans to return to some sort of work in the coming months. It is also worth noting that Alibaba announced earlier this year about their plan to split its business into six different units going forward which would mean that each of its units would work independently and it will also show which of its division is performing poorly and they can take a decision without affecting the other businesses. At that time, Alibaba also said that they want to “unlock investor potential” with this move and it makes sense as well.
Also, Alibaba announced that their CEO at that time, Daniel Zhang, will hand over the leadership to Alibaba’s new CEO Eddie Wu. However, what came as a surprise was the fact that “Alibaba’s new CEO Eddie Wu Yongming, who like Tsai assumed his new role on Sunday, has also taken over for Zhang as acting chairman and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group on the same day” as reported by Alibaba’s spokesperson because of the fact that Daniel Zhang has left Alibaba’s cloud unit as well along with his scheduled departure as the CEO. Alibaba mentioned that Zhang would stay with its cloud unit “given the importance of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as it progresses towards a full spin-off” but he has now left the cloud unit as well.
However, it is worth noting that the market sentiments were different as “shares of Alibaba Group slipped 2.8 percent to HK$88.25 as of 9.45 am local time, the most since August 18” which means that it was a shock for the investors as well and see the move as a destabilizing one for the cloud unit. Co-founder Joe Tsai said, “Today, Daniel has entrusted that torch to Eddie and me under the continuity of our system for leadership succession” and added that “Alibaba Partnership will give Zhang the distinguished title of “Aliren Emeritus”, a first for the company.”
