http://www.thestreet.com/story/11266758/3/caught-in-the-chinese
Jack Ma removed the profitable Alipay unit from the ownership of Yahoo!
earlier this year. After Ma had received some assessments that Alipay could
be worth $30 billion if it was a public entity, he opted to compensate Yahoo
! and Softbank (owners of 70% of Alibaba Group) $50 million for Alipay with
a potential earn-out for the Group owners with a cap of $6 billion. Ma and
his Alibaba Group management team decided to take on the rest of the upside
to Alipay.
American Internet firms should JV at their own risk in China.