The SCMP Group finally closed the deal with Alibaba at a whopping US$262 million approximately. After many rounds of rumors, the Chinese company has announced that Alibaba has agreed to venture into the news business acquiring The South China Morning Post. This Hongkong based newspaper and the other assets of the SCMP Group including the Elle and Esquire sister concern publications and websites will cost Alibaba a big sum of more than $2 million.
According to the BBC report, the SCMP Group said, "a very substantial proportion" of the gain will be disbursed in a special cash dividend. The deal was finalized during the rising anxieties about press freedom in Hongkong. The journalists were attacked and it is also believed that the editorial staffs were pressurized by the authorities and self-censorship also increased.
After the announcement of the sale, the Executive Vice Chairman of Alibaba, Joe Tsai vowed the SCMP would be "objective, accurate and fair" and have "the courage to go against conventional wisdom", reported in The Guardian news.
Alibaba has promised to give complete independence to the editorial team and the company will influentially use its digital technology knowledge to develop the newspaper. It is being said that that the business skill of Jack Ma, the founder of the internet giant Alibaba can surely help SCMP grow.
The news of the sale is also being compared to another internet giant Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos' initiative to buy The Washington Post publication in the year 2013 for a sum of $250 million.
But, the cost of the deal was not revealed by Alibaba when it was announced late on Friday - at nearly 9 pm China time to be precise, reported in the Tech Crunch news.
It is highly an apprehensive time and it might be that the e-commerce heavyweight was trying to keep away from making headlines with this deal of taking over The South China Morning Post. The 100 years organization SCMP is often considered as the press freedom level marker in Hongkong. In comparison to its competitors, the SCMP group is believed to face criticism and cover the happenings in China from a more positive viewpoint.
SCMP was known to be the most money-making publication across the globe, which was in recent times blamed of burying news and printing news only about the Beijing higher authorities. It is also said that The South China Morning Post is distorting news to make China appear more positive. It is not right for a publication to be blamed of showing favoritism or unfairness.
With Alibaba taking the reins of SCMP in hand and assuring the upliftment of the company, one can watch in the future what is in store. Alibaba will surely expose the blister of criticism.
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