http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-14/alibaba-buys-south-china-morning-post-assets-for-266-million
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the e-commerce giant headed by billionaire Jack Ma, agreed to buy Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and other affiliated media assets for HK$2.06 billion ($266 million).
The deal includes the century-old newspaper, outdoor advertising, digital assets and magazines, SCMP Group Ltd. said in a filing Monday. Alibaba last week said it will scrap the publication’s Internet pay wall and that editorial decisions will be made “in the newsroom, not in the corporate boardroom.”
The SCMP, once the envy of the industry in terms of profitability, has in recent years joined other mastheads in struggling to attract advertisers amid the rise of free publications online. Control of the city’s premier English-language broadsheet has been unchanged since media magnate Rupert Murdoch sold most of his stake to Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok in 1993.
Ma is following in the footsteps of Jeff Bezos in pursuing the revival of a storied newspaper, after the founder of Amazon.com Inc. paid $250 million for the Washington Post in 2013.
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