Just two weeks after rumours emerged of an IPO for Alibaba’s investment arm, its cloud computing arm has begun its own overhaul.
Ali Cloud is set to become an independent, publicly listed company as part of a major restructuring for its parent company, e-commerce giant Alibaba. Alibaba has not yet commented on the planned IPO or staff lay-offs, but the overhaul was reported by multiple Chinese news sites on May 24.
Ali Cloud is expected to cut about 7% of its staff, after revenue reportedly fell 2% year-on-year in this year’s first quarter. The past year also saw Alibaba as a whole lay off a similar proportion of its staff after a two-year-long government crackdown on the tech sector put Alibaba in the firing line and strained company profits.
The Ali Cloud update comes just weeks after the announcement that Alibaba will split into six separate units, each run by its own CEO. It was also announced that five of the six new groups under Alibaba will be pursuing IPOs, though no timeline was initially given.
Now Ali Cloud is known to be seeking an initial public offering in the next 12 months, alongside Cainiao and Alibaba’s supermarket chain Freshippo in a similar timeframe.
