Alibaba in Alipay Deal: Jack Ma Wins Again 支付宝股权纷争尘埃落定马云公关赚钱两不误

By newsdoug on July 31, 2011

Jack Ma pulls sleight of hand with Alipay After months of wrangling, Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma has finally reached a settlement of his dispute with stakeholders Softbank (Tokyo: 9984) and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) over the spin-off of the company’s Alipay electronic payments service, in what looks to be both a PR and monetary victory for Ma himself. (company announcement) It’s hard to say too much without knowing more about the financial structure of Alibaba, but the fact that the company will only get 37.5 percent of any proceeds from a future Alipay IPO, as stipulated in the terms of the agreement, looks like Alibaba — which counts Yahoo and Softbank as its controlling stakeholders — is getting surprisingly little from this investment that it once presumably owned completely. Terms of the deal say the parties expect Alipay to be valued at anywhere from $2 billion to $6 billion by the time an IPO or other “liquidity event” occurs, which means that Alibaba Group will get as little as little as $750 million from this asset by the time it goes public, which one might expect in the next 2-3 years. Despite an official announcement filled with lots of happy quotes from all three parties, including Softbank’s waxing on the importance of trust, this deal seems to hint of more conflict ahead as undoubtedly both Yahoo and Softbank will constantly worry that Jack Ma is trying to take advantage of them again in the years ahead. In this version of events that has just been announced, Jack Ma seems to come out the winner most ways you look at it, taking control of Alipay by only giving a third of the company to his partners, and also looking reasonable to the world after his childish behavior throughout this drawn-out conflict. If I were Yahoo or Softbank, I would try to get out of my Alibaba investment sooner rather than later, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or both of these companies try to sell their stake in this troubled company by the end of this year.

Bottom line: Jack Ma has won a PR and financial victory in his new Alipay settlement with Yahoo and Softbank, with more stormy relations between these 3 partners likely in the months ahead.

经过数月的争吵，阿里巴巴集团董事长马云终於就其与两大股东软银<9984.T>和雅虎<YHOO.O>就支付宝股权转让事件达成协议，对马云来说，似乎是公关和财富双赢。在对阿里巴巴财务结构所知甚少的情况下，我们很难就此事过多评论，但事实是，根据协议条款，阿里巴巴只能获得支付宝上市收益的37.5%，阿里巴巴似乎从这笔投资中所获甚少。预计支付宝将在未来两三年上市。尽管正式声明中充满了三方的友好表示，但该协议似乎暗示着未来会出现更多冲突，因雅虎和软银无疑都担心，马云未来几年会再次试图占他们的便宜。马云似乎怎麽看都是此次事件的最大赢家：首先，只把三分之一的公司出让给合作夥伴便掌控了支付宝；其次，通过这一旷日持久的纷争，协议的达成对世人也是个合理交待。如果我是雅虎或软银，我会努力尽早撤出对阿里巴巴的投资。如果在今年年底前看到两公司或其中之一试图出售阿里巴巴的股份，我一点也不会感到意外。

一句话：在此次与雅虎、软银就支付宝股权转让的纷争中，马云公关赚钱两不误，而三方未来数月的关系料不会一帆风顺。