Hong Kong stock prices dropped on Monday after Alibaba Group said that Daniel Zhang, its outgoing CEO, would also step down as head of its cloud unit.
Alibaba said in a statement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that Eddie Yongming Wu will take over as temporary chairman and CEO of the cloud unit and as CEO of the company as of right now.
After the news came out, shares of the company fell more than 3%, which caused the Hang Seng market to fall 2% as a whole. The market was mostly shocked by the move, since Zhang was supposed to lead Alibaba’s cloud unit as the company splits into six separate companies in the next few months.
The company said on Monday that it will go ahead with its plan to split the cloud unit and give it its own management team. The e-commerce giant had also marked the unit as a possible sale.
Zhang started working for Alibaba in 2007 and was very important to the company’s hugely popular “Singles Day” shopping event. In 2015, he was named CEO, and in 2019, he became chairman, taking over from co-founder Jack Ma in both jobs.
