China’s fifth-richest man Jack Ma has agreed to give up control of FinTech giant Ant Group as part of a wider overhaul at the company.

The company has been facing regulatory scrutiny since its record-breaking $37 billion IPO was cancelled at the last minute in November 2020. This led to a forced restructuring of Ant Group and speculation that Ma would be pressured to step down in an effort to draw a line under the affair, with Chinese authorities still poised to impose a fine of more than $1 billion on the company.

Ant Group operates Alipay, the world’s largest mobile payments app with more than 1 billion users. The group’s business also includes consumer lending and insurance products distribution.

Ma, who rose to prominence as the founder of ecommerce behemoth Alibaba, will reduce his control of Ant Group voting rights from 50 per cent to 6.2 per cent. While Ma only owns a 10 per cent stake in the FinTech, he has been able to exert greater control via related entities such as his investment vehicle Hangzhou Yunbo.

The company said that Ma and nine other major shareholders have agreed to no longer act in concert and that they will only vote independently, though its shareholders’ economic interests will not change.

Ant Group also said that it will add a fifth independent director to its board, stating: "As a result, there will no longer be a situation where a direct or indirect shareholder will have sole or joint control over Ant Group.”

The Chinese government has carried out a crackdown on the country’s tech giants over the past two years, reducing the sector’s value by billions of dollars and cutting profits. Authorities however in recent months have softened their stance with the sector struggling to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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