Mr. Ma, a co-founder who constructed Alibaba into one of many world’s largest e-commerce corporations on China’s rising affluence, was as soon as recognized for his outspoken views. However since China launched into its marketing campaign to tame web corporations, the billionaire has largely stored a low profile and remained overseas. He returned to mainland China in current days for the primary recognized time in nearly a 12 months, visiting a faculty within the jap metropolis of Hangzhou the place Alibaba relies.

Alibaba’s restructuring culminates a yearslong shift inside the corporate to make it extra nimble after Mr. Ma stepped again from the corporate’s helm in 2019. It reverses a centralization drive he embarked upon earlier than his departure by which he sought to carry the corporate’s subsidiaries and associates into nearer alignment, a part of the so-called Alibaba Economic system.

The ability of tech titans comparable to Mr. Ma and their affect over society precipitated unease in Beijing: Corporations comparable to Alibaba have a grip on information of greater than a billion customers and investments throughout a variety of corporations in China. Beijing has up to now criticized the “disorderly enlargement” of the nation’s largest web corporations.

“For those who don’t change your self, you’ll be defeated by the instances,” Alibaba Chairman and Chief Government

Daniel Zhang

stated in a letter to workers reviewed by The Wall Road Journal. He added that Alibaba’s numerous companies are going through totally different challenges and market situations.

Below the restructuring, Alibaba’s numerous companies can be break up up into six main areas: cloud computing, Chinese language e-commerce, international e-commerce, digital mapping and meals supply, logistics, and media and leisure, the corporate stated Tuesday.

Every enterprise group would have its personal CEO reporting to a board of administrators and be absolutely accountable for the group’s efficiency. Alibaba Group is about to develop into a holding firm overseen by Mr. Zhang.

These enterprise teams can be allowed to lift exterior capital and search preliminary public choices when they’re prepared, Alibaba stated. Its home commerce enterprise will stay a completely owned unit of Alibaba, it added.

Mr. Ma was listed as a committee member of Alibaba Partnership, a strategy-making physique of senior executives, within the firm’s newest annual report printed final July. He held lower than 5% in Alibaba Group on the time.

In 2021, the Journal reported that Mr. Zhang had been delegating extra energy to the heads of Alibaba’s numerous enterprise items, which had the potential to open the way in which for spinoffs and unbiased fundraisings.

The transfer echoes earlier sweeping reorganizations by Western tech giants comparable to Google, which created

Alphabet Inc.

as a holding firm whereas separating its rising forged of companies.

Nonetheless, the holding-company construction isn’t widespread for Chinese language tech giants. In 2021, TikTok guardian ByteDance Ltd. reorganized its operations, previously divided by capabilities, into six enterprise items that now deal with totally different product traces.

Alibaba’s break up comes after Mr. Ma reappeared in China and at a time when Beijing is in search of to revive entrepreneurs’ confidence following greater than two years of regulatory clampdowns and Covid-19 restrictions. The announcement wasn’t associated to his return, individuals inside the corporate stated.

The itemizing standing of Alibaba’s shares in New York and Hong Kong gained’t be affected, individuals acquainted with the matter stated. Alibaba’s American depositary receipts climbed greater than 9% in premarket buying and selling on Tuesday in New York.

Beijing began to crack down on the Chinese language tech sector in late 2020, calling off Ant Group Co.’s blockbuster IPOs. The cancellations got here after Mr. Ma’s speech at a monetary discussion board drew the ire of regulators by criticizing their work as anachronistic. Regulators subsequently launched a probe into Alibaba for alleged anticompetitive conduct on its e-commerce platform and later hit the corporate with a report $2.8 billion positive.

Regulators additionally slapped hefty fines on different tech giants over points together with antitrust and data-security breaches, erasing greater than $1 trillion in market worth from China’s largest publicly listed tech corporations.

Hopes that regulatory headwinds could also be easing started to construct because the nation’s prime brass sounded extra conciliatory towards non-public companies. However tighter oversight has develop into the brand new regular, and in January, Chinese language authorities acquired a stake in a subsidiary of Alibaba. The sudden disappearance of star funding banker

Fan Bao

just lately despatched shivers by way of China’s enterprise neighborhood.

Like many giant tech corporations which might be burgeoning conglomerates, Alibaba has expanded its ecosystem by providing shoppers and companies multifaceted companies, from buying and journey to funds and logistics.

Since 2020, Alibaba has been establishing subsidiaries based mostly on enterprise capabilities. Aside from the six corporations, different companies could possibly be regrouped as comparable unbiased entities sooner or later whereas groups comparable to analysis, information administration, finance and human sources can be unfold throughout subsidiaries, Mr. Zhang stated in his letter to workers.

“This transformation will empower all our companies to develop into extra agile, improve decision-making and allow sooner responses to market modifications,” he stated.

Mr. Zhang is about to proceed to guide the cloud-computing division, as the corporate gears as much as develop its enterprise into international markets and within the artificial-intelligence area.

Write to Raffaele Huang at raffaele.huang@wsj.com and Clarence Leong at clarence.leong@wsj.com