Tsai is a co-founder of Alibaba Group, China's biggest e-commerce company. The Hangzhou-based business operates Taobao, an online shopping site, and Tmall, a platform that lets companies open online stores. It had revenue of 377 billion yuan ($56 billion) and 654 million active customers in the year to March 31, 2019.
Joseph Tsai's net worth of $12.8B can buy ...
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The majority of Tsai's wealth is derived from his 1.7% stake in Alibaba Group, China's biggest e-commerce company. The group had revenue of 377 billion yuan ($56 billion) and 654 million active customers in the year to March 31, 2019, according to its 2018 annual report.
The billionaire controls the stake directly and through holding companies based in the Bahamas and British Virgin Islands, according to a November 2019 company filing.
About 30% of his shares are held by APN, a Cayman Islands-based company in which Tsai has a 30% equity interest. Pledged shares held through APN are included in the calculation because they're pledged for a liquidity event payment that may not become due.
Tsai acquired a 49% stake in the Brooklyn Nets basketball club from Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov in 2018. The sale valued the Nets at $2.3 billion, according to an Oct. 27, 2017 report from Bloomberg News. In September 2019, he acquired the remaining 51% of the Nets and took full ownership of the Barclay Centre. Tsai paid $3.4 billion for both stakes and the stadium, according to a New York Post report.
A liability is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance.
Rachel Chan, a spokeswoman for Alibaba, declined to comment on Tsai's wealth.
Joseph Tsai was born in Taipei in January 1964 to a corporate lawyer and his wife. He was sent by his parents at age 13 to Lawrenceville School, one of the most expensive boarding academies in the U.S. where he learned to play lacrosse. He graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in East Asian studies and economics in 1986 and continued his education at Yale to study law.
Tsai took a job in New York as a tax associate at the lawfirm Sullivan & Cromwell. He joined the buyout firm Rosecliff as vice president and general counsel, then moved to Hong Kong as a private equity investment manager for Investor AB, the Stockholm-based holding company controlled by the Wallenberg family. He married Clara Wu in 1996.
Three years later, he was introduced to Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba.com, through a friend in Taiwan. Ma, who was running the startup from his Hangzhou, China, apartment without any financial or legal background, offered Tsai a salary of $50 a month -- a far cry from the $700,000 he was earning at Investor AB.
To Ma's surprise, Tsai took the job even though his wife was pregnant, By 2000, he was negotiating with investors, including SoftBank, Goldman Sachs and Fidelity Investments. He raised $25 million.
In later years, Tsai led efforts to establish Alibaba's headquarters in Hong Kong, list the shares in Hong Kong, and negotiate with Yahoo as a strategic investor. He's was in charge of Alibaba's initial public offering, the biggest in U.S. history. In addition to Alibaba.com, an online B2B e-commerce website, the company operates Taobao, China's top retail site, and Alipay.com, the country's most popular online-payment service.