Simon Yiming Ma is a technology entrepreneur who co-founded Camelot Information Systems and led the company as chairman and CEO. He is a different person from ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming and from Alibaba co founder Jack Ma. He built the China-based enterprise and financial IT services company with Heidi Chou in 2000, listed it on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010, and led the 2014 buyout that returned it to private ownership. His daughter Rebecca Ma, known online as Becca Bloom, made the family’s wealth visible on TikTok in 2025.
As of 2026, Ma’s net worth is estimated at $500 million. Nothing public confirms that figure. The only hard number comes from the 2014 take private deal, which valued the whole company at about $98 million in equity.
| Simon Yiming Ma | Quick overview |
|---|---|
| Estimated net worth | $500 million, unverified |
| Main wealth source | Camelot Information Systems and private company ownership |
| Known for | Chairman, CEO, and cofounder of Camelot Information Systems |
| Company start | Camelot cofounded in 2000 |
| 2010 IPO | 13.33 million ADS at $11, about $146.67 million raised |
| Take private deal | $2.05 per ADS, completed in 2014 |
| Technical background | IBM Silicon Valley, UC Santa Barbara, East China Normal University |
| Family context | Camelot president Heidi Chou and daughter Rebecca Ma / Becca Bloom |
| In the news | Daughter Becca Bloom’s RichTok fame |
From IBM Chief Architect To Camelot Co Founder
Ma comes from Beijing. He earned a bachelor’s degree at East China Normal University, then went to the University of California, Santa Barbara for a PhD in mathematics and master’s degrees in mathematics and computer science. Before Camelot, he spent eight years at IBM in Silicon Valley as chief architect, where he worked on software solutions for IBM customers and met Heidi Chou, a Shanghai native. He has since served on the Northern California Advisory Council of the Asia Society.
Camelot began in November 2000, with Ma as co founder, chairman, and CEO and Beijing as its home base. By 2008, IDC ranked it as China’s largest ERP/SAP service provider and largest ERP/SAP resource pool.
The 2010 IPO Put Camelot On The NYSE
Camelot’s 2010 IPO sold 13.33 million American depositary shares at $11 each and raised about $146.67 million. In July 2010, the deal priced at the low end of the $11 to $13 range the underwriters had set. Goldman Sachs and Barclays led the offering, and the company itself received 69 percent of the proceeds.
Camelot worked on behalf of IBM and Accenture and drew most of its sales from China and Japan. It traded as CIS on the NYSE, and each ADR represented four common shares.
The Buyout That Took The Fortune Private
In 2013, Ma, Heidi Chou, and Yuhui Wang moved to take Camelot private. The board received the group’s proposal letter on March 12, 2013. Their early offer put the buyout at $1.85 for each ADS and valued the company at about $82.1 million, based on 44.4 million outstanding shares. Camelot’s stock jumped more than 11 percent the day the offer became public.
A later agreement came in higher. Camelot’s going private deal priced the company at $2.05 for each ADS and implied about $98.2 million in equity value on a fully diluted basis. The two sides signed the definitive merger agreement on September 18, 2013, and the final price carried a 36.7 percent premium over the stock’s last close before the buyout plan went public. Ma wholly owned the buyout vehicle, a British Virgin Islands company named Camelot Employee Scheme Inc., at the agreement stage. The filing said the buyout vehicle would be owned after closing by Ma, Camelot president Heidi Chou, executive vice president Yuhui Wang, and 32 existing shareholders who chose to roll over shares.
The buyout vehicle had $70 million in debt from China Development Industrial Bank, $20 million in convertible note capital from Zoyi Management Consulting, and another $10 million available at Zoyi’s option. The company they were buying kept growing through the process, with net revenue of $70.9 million in the third quarter of 2013, up 12.5 percent from a year earlier.
Shareholders approved the merger on March 25, 2014, with about 61% of outstanding ordinary shares voting and about 84% of voting shares supporting the proposal.
Camelot completed the merger on March 28, 2014, four years after its NYSE debut, and became a wholly owned subsidiary of the buyout vehicle. Ordinary shares were cancelled for $0.5125 each, and ADS holders received $2.05 for each ADS, except for excluded shares tied to Ma, Heidi Chou, Yuhui Wang, rollover shareholders, and dissenting shareholders.
Public shareholders received cash. Ma, Chou, Wang, and the rollover shareholders stayed invested in the private company.
Camelot Kept Working After The NYSE Exit
In 2018, Ma picked up an award as one of China’s top 10 most innovative entrepreneurs, and Camelot collected recognitions for IT consulting and cloud services the same year. In 2020 and 2021, it made top 100 Chinese solution provider lists.
Becca Bloom Made The Family’s Wealth Visible
As Becca Bloom, Rebecca Ma became one of RichTok’s biggest luxury creators. She started posting on TikTok in January 2025, and an early video that went viral showed a Rolls-Royce Spectre her father gave her mother as an anniversary gift. By February 2026, she had more than 5.3 million TikTok followers, and Forbes identified her parents as Simon Yiming Ma and Heidi Chou.
Bloom grew up wealthy in California and, by May 2025, was working in finance while posting luxury fashion and lifestyle content online. Her family moved to Atherton, California, while she was in high school, and she graduated from Menlo School before studying business at the University of Southern California. She is the middle of three children.
Time named her to its 100 Creators list in July 2025. On August 28, 2025, she married David Pownall, a software engineer, at Villa Balbiano on Lake Como in front of 60 guests.
Since March 2014, no exchange has put a price on Camelot or on Ma’s stake in it. The clearest view of the family’s wealth now comes from Becca Bloom’s videos.
