Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma has allegedly fallen out with the Beijing government. Severalrecent articles reported that Ma offended the Chinese authorities by delivering a speech in Shanghai in October criticising financial regulation, and that he and his colleagues were called in for questioning. The planned IPO of his financial services powerhouse, Ant Group, for over US$30 billion, was suddenly suspended. Antitrust investigations were instigated against his other major company, online retailer Alibaba (and also Chinese tech giant, Tencent). Towards the end of the year, Ma then received a “rectification order” from the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the central bank, outlining five ways in which Ant Group must comply with the regulator. To cap it all, the entrepreneur has reportedly not been seen in public since October.
Courtesy of United Wholesale Mortgage. This story is available exclusively to Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.
United Wholesale Mortgage is the No. 1 wholesale mortgage lender in the US. In January 2021, UWM will go public in the largest SPAC deal ever.
CEO Mat Ishbia is a former basketball player who calls his 7,400 colleagues family. He vowed not to conduct any layoffs during the pandemic and just made all his employees shareholders.
Ishbia hires motivated candidates, trains them, and molds them into mortgage superstars.
It s not yet clear whether Ishbia will be able to maintain this positive work culture once the company goes public.