Splitting Alibaba Group into separate companies will allow its business units to be more agile and eventually list on their own, the tech giant’s chief executive, Daniel Zhang, said on Thursday. Zhang’s comments came two days after Alibaba announced its largest restructuring in the company’s history, which will change it to a holding company structure with six business units, each with its own board and CEO.
“Alibaba will be more in the nature of an asset and capital operator than a business operator related to business group companies,” he told investors in a conference call. The business units will have their own CEOs and boards, although Alibaba will retain seats on those boards in the short term, Zhang added.
Alibaba began laying the groundwork for restructuring years ago, Zhang told investors during a conference call, with business units likely to pursue public listings on their own in the future. After those units go public, Alibaba will “continue to assess the strategic importance of these entities” and “decide whether to continue to retain control,” Alibaba CFO Toby Xu said in the call.
