(Reuters) -JD.com founder and CEO Richard Liu will donate company shares worth about $2.34 billion to charity, the Chinese e-commerce giant said on Wednesday, adding to a list of similar philanthropic pledges from the country’s top tech billionaires.
The move comes as China tightens scrutiny on its tech sector, including JD.com and rival Alibaba Group Holding, as part of President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity https://www.reuters.com/world/china/what-is-chinas-common-prosperity-drive-why-does-it-matter-2021-09-02” drive to ease inequality in the world’s second-largest economy.
Liu will give away about 62.4 million Class B ordinary JD shares, the company disclosed in a filing https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1549802/000119312522025112/d302215d6k.htm, without specifying the third-party foundation receiving the donation.
American depository shares in JD, each representing two ordinary shares of the company, closed at $75.08 on Tuesday and were last trading down nearly 1.9% on Wednesday.
Other big Chinese tech leaders who have ramped up charitable donations amid the government crackdown include ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, who pledged https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/bytedance-founder-donates-77-million-amid-china-billionaires-charity-rush-2021-06-22 500 million yuan ($78.61 million) to the Chinese city of Longyan for education.
According to a filing in June last year, food delivery giant Meituan’s founder and chief executive, Wang Xing, said he would donate shares worth about $2.27 billion to his personal charity.
In April 2021, tech giant Tencent said it would invest 50 billion yuan in environmental and social initiatives amid regulatory scrutiny from antitrust regulators.
($1 = 6.3605 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)
