Four years ago, Jack Ma was the embodiment of China’s spectacular economic rise. Already the country’s wealthiest and most famous businessman, he was poised to become one of the richest in the world.

       The expected initial public offering of Mr. Ma’s fintech company, Ant Group, was projected to surpass the record-shattering launch of his e-commerce giant, Alibaba. Soon, it was thought, he would be lionized like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — a paragon of Western-style business in China.

       At the same time, another wealthy Chinese businessman was awaiting a very different fate. Xiao Jianhua was languishing in detention on bribery and corruption charges — a larger-than-life target of a government crackdown on graft. Mr. Xiao had amassed a fortune manipulating markets and cultivating close ties to relatives of top Chinese officials, and he was about to be made an example.

       And yet behind the scenes, these bookends of China’s catch-as-catch-can capitalism — its most celebrated and its most notorious billionaires — were linked through investments worth at least $1 billion, an investigation by The New York Times and The Wire China found.

       Advertisement

       SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

       A review of more than 2,000 confidential documents shows that Mr. Xiao’s now dismantled company Tomorrow Group secretly secured lucrative shares in an array of Mr. Ma’s companies over a period of five years. These business associations were never disclosed, and a former senior executive at Tomorrow Group said, “As far as we know, Jack Ma was unaware” of them.

       The deals offer a close-up view of China’s signature brand of capitalism, where well-connected entrepreneurs and those who raise money for them are better off, at least in some cases, not interacting with one another. In almost any other robust economy, the proprietor of a major business would want to develop a relationship with an investor who raised $1 billion, and the investor would want to influence how the money was used.

       A Web of Secrecy Xiao Jianhua invested in Jack Ma’s business empire through a network of proxy shareholders, granting him anonymity and shielding the deals from public scrutiny.

       Xiao Jianhua

       Chinese billionaire, serving 13-year prison term for crimes including bribery

       INVESTMENTS

       PROXY

       INVESTORS

       Zhao

       Binbin

       Huang

       Youlong

       Liu Di

       No photo

       available

       Relative by marriage of an employee of Mr. Xiao

       Friend and business partner of Jack Ma

       Employee of Mr. Xiao

       $87

       million

       $25

       million

       $93

       million

       $400

       million

       2016

       Valued at

       $293 million

       just before

       anticipated

       2020 I.P.O.

       2011

       Sold 2015

       for a profit

       of 450%

       2015

       2014

       $128

       million

       $109

       million

       2015

       2015

       Yunfeng

       Financial

       formerly

       Reorient

       Alibaba

       Pictures

       formerly

       ChinaVision

       Alibaba

       Group

       Ant

       Group

       FOUNDER/INVESTOR

       Jack Ma

       China’s most

       famous businessman

       By Guilbert Gates

       Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.