Alibaba Pictures Group (APG) has appointed Fan Luyuan as its CEO and chairman of the company’s executive committee, the company said in a regulatory filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange today.
Fan, who is coming from Alipay, Alibaba’s digital payment service, will succeed Mr. Yu Yongfu as CEO of Alibaba Pictures while Yu will stay on as Yu chairman of Alibaba’s Digital Media & Entertainment Group, which sits above APG.
Fan has been involved in the running of APG, since its inception, as an executive director and a member of the executive committee. He is described by the company as the “founder of Tao Piao Piao,” which is APG’s online ticketing division.
Tao Piao Piao held 30 percent market share in the first two months of 2017, just slightly behind rival Maoyan which held 33 percent, but in front of Tencent’s Weipiao on 16 percent, according to data shared by the company.
Fan, along with his team at Alipay, was responsible for the launch of Yu’e Bao — which means “leftover treasure” — which has become the world’s largest money-market fund with just over $160 billion under management.
In a media release published on Thursday, the CEO of Ant Financial Services Group, Jing Xiandong, included a heartfelt message to his colleague, saying they are “not just mere colleagues, but friends and brothers.”
“We happily send him off to his new post in the Company to continue to break new ground and to continue to work hard towards our common mission,” Mr. Jing said. “As brothers, let us fight together!”