A recent property purchase in London by the family of Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba Group, has put a spotlight on the China-based billionaire’s movements and his growing overseas investments.
According to The Financial Times, Ma’s wife Cathy Ying Zhang bought a former Italian embassy building in London’s Belgravia district for £19.5 million (US$ 25.6 million) in the autumn of 2024.
The transaction, confirmed through UK Land Registry filings and people familiar with the sale, makes it one of the most expensive residential property deals in Britain that year, ranking 34th among London’s top real estate transactions, as per data from LonRes.
What we know about Jack Ma’s London purchase
The historic townhouse, a Grade II listed building, was originally constructed in the early 20th century and served as the Italian embassy in the 1920s, before later being used as the office of Italy’s defence attaché.
In the early 2000s, the property was returned to private hands and converted into a luxury residence.
Marketing documents describe the nearly 8,000-square-foot home as containing six bedrooms, a cinema room, lift, staff quarters, and a private garden, with two secure underground parking spaces and vaults inside the property.
The home’s proximity to Buckingham Palace and Sloane Square places it in one of London’s most exclusive areas.
Real estate agents Beauchamp Estates and Knight Frank, which managed the sale, have declined to identify the buyer, as did Withers LLP, the law firm that handled the deal. However, SourceMaterial, an investigative outlet, provided documentation naming Zhang as the purchaser.
The property was initially listed at £21.5 million, according to real estate listings, and the buyer was reportedly attracted to its “prestigious location” and “high-level security.”
The acquisition occurred amid subdued demand in London’s luxury property market following the Labour government’s decision to abolish non-dom tax status and growing debate over a potential wealth and mansion tax.
Despite a 4 per cent decline in the average price of London mansions in the year to October 2024 — the steepest drop since early 2021 — landmark transactions continued.
That same year, Star Wars creator George Lucas bought a £40 million mansion in St John’s Wood, while fashion designer Tom Ford completed an £80 million purchase in Chelsea before new stamp duty surcharges were introduced.
Against this backdrop, the Ma family’s purchase has stood out as one of the most significant global acquisitions by a Chinese billionaire.
How Jack Ma’s global property empire is growing
The Belgravia purchase is the latest addition to an expanding real estate portfolio that stretches across Asia, Europe, and North America.
Over the past decade, Ma and his family have accumulated a network of properties through private companies, often incorporated in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, a common strategy among China’s wealthy elites to maintain confidentiality in international transactions.
According to previous reports, Zhang bought three adjoining shophouses in Singapore’s prime district in 2024 for approximately S$45 million (US$34 million).
She is also listed as the sole shareholder of a Hong Kong-based company that owns a château and vineyards in France, highlighting the family’s focus on high-value, long-term assets.
In Hong Kong, the Mas purchased a luxury home on Victoria Peak in 2015, a site that had once housed the Belgian government’s consular residence.
The original structure was largely demolished, and construction of a new mansion overlooking Victoria Harbour has been underway for several years.
Their property holdings extend beyond Asia. In 2015, Ma bought a 28,100-acre estate in New York’s Adirondack Mountains for $23 million, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The property — complete with trout streams, stables, and a maple syrup processing facility — was described by a company spokesperson as a purchase made primarily “for conservation purposes.”
The family’s collection of residences and estates across multiple continents highlights a deliberate diversification of assets outside China, even as Ma himself has maintained a deliberately low public profile since his dispute with Chinese authorities began.
How Jack Ma caught the ire of Beijing
Jack Ma’s journey from outspoken tech pioneer to subdued public figure has mirrored the changing fortunes of China’s private sector.
Once one of the most recognisable entrepreneurs in the world, Ma’s image shifted dramatically after his 2020 speech criticising Chinese financial regulators and state-owned banks.
The comments, made just before Ant Group’s planned $37 billion IPO, prompted regulators to suspend what would have been the largest initial public offering in history.
The decision marked the beginning of a far-reaching regulatory campaign targeting not only Ma’s businesses but also other major Chinese technology firms.
The financial consequences were staggering. Between late 2020 and 2023, Alibaba and Ant Group collectively lost about $877 billion in market value, while Ma’s personal fortune fell from $61 billion to roughly $30 billion.
In 2023, Ant Group was fined nearly $1 billion, signalling the formal conclusion of Beijing’s multi-year crackdown on the private sector.
Following the fallout, Ma vanished from public life. His absence from events and public appearances led to intense speculation within and outside China.
For nearly two years, he was largely untraceable in media coverage, reportedly residing in Japan, Thailand, and Europe, while maintaining a low profile.
When Ma resurfaced in late 2022, he was seen in Tokyo, where he reportedly took up an academic post at Tokyo College, engaging in educational and agricultural innovation research.
Photos posted online later showed him visiting Jay Fai, a renowned restaurant in Bangkok in Thailand.
He
reappeared in mainland China in March 2023, visiting schools in Hangzhou and speaking about educational reform — a symbolic gesture linking him back to his early years as an English teacher before he founded Alibaba in 1999.
How Jack Ma wooed Xi and Co. again
By early this year, signs emerged that Ma’s relationship with the Chinese government had improved. In February 2025, he was seen attending a high-level summit with President Xi Jinping alongside other prominent private business leaders.
The meeting was widely interpreted as an attempt by Beijing to rebuild confidence among entrepreneurs after years of regulatory tightening.
In September, Bloomberg reported that Ma had returned to Alibaba’s offices and was actively involved in internal discussions, although he held no official executive position.
His informal re-engagement reportedly boosted morale across the company, which continues to face challenges in a slower domestic economy and amid intensifying competition.
This reappearance symbolised a kind of rehabilitation. The man once viewed as a maverick critic of China’s economic bureaucracy seemed to have re-entered the system — albeit cautiously.
Ma’s net worth had rebounded to around $39.7 billion by mid-2025, following partial recoveries in Alibaba’s stock performance and broader market stabilisation.
Ma’s return to public life and his meetings with state officials were considered by analysts to be emblematic of Beijing’s new pragmatic tone toward the private sector, aimed at stimulating growth amid property market distress and subdued consumer confidence.
How Jack Ma still remains a global icon who came from humble origins
Jack Ma’s story remains one of China’s most striking entrepreneurial transformations. Born in Hangzhou in 1964, Ma failed the national university entrance exam twice before being accepted to Hangzhou Normal University, where he later met Cathy Zhang.
After graduating, he worked as an English teacher, often guiding foreign tourists around his hometown to practice the language.
In 1999, Ma and a small team launched Alibaba, which grew into one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies, second only to Amazon by gross merchandise volume.
By the mid-2010s, Ma was considered a symbol of China’s economic rise and innovation potential.
However, by the end of the decade, his outspoken personality began to clash with Beijing’s vision of controlled capitalism. The regulatory tightening that followed 2020 marked a turning point — not only for Ma personally, but for China’s entire private sector ecosystem.
In recent years, Ma has been careful to avoid the media spotlight that once defined his global image. He no longer attends major international conferences or high-profile events.
Instead, his activities have centred on education, technology investment, and agriculture, reflecting his long-stated belief that innovation in these sectors is vital for sustainable economic growth.
At Tokyo College, where he held a research position beginning in 2023, Ma focused on environmental sustainability and agrotech projects.
Around the same time, he
reportedly invested in a pre-packaged food company and a Chinese agricultural startup, according to Bloomberg.
While these ventures are smaller in scale compared to Alibaba’s global empire, they represent Ma’s gradual pivot from global dominance to focused innovation — a shift that aligns with Beijing’s push for “common prosperity” and self-reliance in key industries.
Given Ma’s preference for discretion since 2020, it is unlikely that the London purchase signals any public announcement or relocation in the immediate term.
Jack Ma’s story cannot be viewed in isolation.
Since 2020, Chinese authorities have tightened oversight over sectors from technology to real estate, curbing what they saw as unchecked capital expansion.
The result has been a visible withdrawal of many entrepreneurs from the public sphere and a reorganisation of assets overseas.
With inputs from agencies