Part-way through Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's long-awaited IPO prospectus was a subtle, but striking, warning: investors should know that lead founder and executive chairman Jack Ma might work against the company's best interests. The acknowledgement, on page 42 of a 300-plus-page filing, highlighted longstanding questions about the Chinese e-commerce giant's complex corporate structure and potential conflicts of interests surrounding Ma, who started Alibaba in his one-room apartment in 1999 and has since branched out into markets as diverse as e-payments and financial investment.To be sure, such warnings of potential conflicts were included in the prospectuses of many founder-controlled tech companies, including Facebook Inc and LinkedIn Corp . But Alibaba's warning stands out given Ma's numerous investments in third-party firms that partner with his company.One hot-button issue is Ma's control of Alipay, the PayPal-like affiliate established by Alibaba in 2004, which continues to provide the lions' share of payment services for the company's retail marketplaces.Four years ago, Alibaba spun out Alipay to a group including Ma, who holds a 46 percent stake in Alipay through another company, Zhejiang Alibaba E-Commerce Co.
Facebook, Inc. (Facebook) is engaged in building products to create utility for users, developers, and advertisers. Shares of FB fell by 1.95% or $-1.14/share to $57.39. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $22.67 and as high as $72.59. On average, 70353904 shares of FB exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 78587248.
Source
