Alibaba (BABA) shares dropped 1.17% in early trading on Monday after former CEO Daniel Zhang stepped down, just two months after shifting his focus to Alibaba's cloud unit amid a restructuring ahead of its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:initial public offering (IPO).
Key Takeaways
- Daniel Zhang is stepping down as head of Alibaba's cloud unit.
- The former group CEO had taken over the helm of the cloud division just two months ago.
- ADRs of Alibaba slipped following the news as Zhang's abrupt departure raised concerns about the cloud unit's upcoming IPO.
Valued between $41 billion and $60 billion, Alibaba's Cloud Intelligence Group is its second most profitable business. It is planned to be the first of the Group's five newly created business units to go public next year.
Ed﷽die Yongming Wu, who was set to take over as CEO and director of Alibaba Group, will take over for Zhang as chair and CEO of the cloud business.
During Zhang's eight-year tenure, Alibaba became China's biggest company, starting new ventures such as physical retail that went on to become the group's fastest-growing business. However, the company has suffered from increased regulatory scrutiny of China's internet sector.
The cloud division's revenue also fell for the time in its history earlier this year, by 2% from January to March, partly due to a delay of some of its projects.
Zhang will reportedly continue contributing to Alibaba by running a $1 billion technology investment fund set up by the group.