Meituan founder donates $2.27 BLN shares as charity grips Chinese billionaires

The founder of food delivery giant Meituan will donate shares worth about $2.27 billion to his personal charity. This is shown in a stock exchange filing, making him the latest Chinese tech billionaire to make such a gesture.

All these donations of shares by the Chief Executive Wang Xing comes as Meituan and other platform economy companies have come under the scrutiny of China’s anti-trust regulator. Meituan and several other sharing economy companies, have been warned by the market regulator, over opaque pricing practices. The company said in a statement that the changes regarding Wang Xing’s interest in shares of Meituan represent a personal asset allocation decision and that was made out of philanthropic considerations. And this decision does not reflect any changes in his dedication to Meituan’s business.

The founder of e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, Colin Huang, announced he was stepping down as chairman in March, after last year giving away 2.37% of his shares, worth $1.85 billion. Last month, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming announced he will step down as CEO of the TikTok owner. Xie Wen, a former Yahoo China president turned critic of the Chinese tech sector said that the time is a bit sensitive and added that he does not believe there is one single reason behind such decisions. Wang is a person with a sense of social responsibility, according to his understanding.

57.319 million class A shares will be converted into class B shares by Wang and also, he will transfer the class B shares into the Wang Xing Fund. This promotes education and scientific research. Tech giant Tencent, faces an antitrust penalty, in April, pledged to invest 50 billion yuan ($7.81 billion) in environmental and social initiatives.