Alibaba’s Jack Ma in Talks to Buy SCMP Stake

The founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is in talks to buy a stake in the publisher of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper, Bloomberg News reported today.

An Alibaba spokesman declined to comment. An unnamed source told Bloomberg that a signing ceremony for the deal will be held soon. Furthermore, the investment would add up to Alibaba’s growing media empire with a couple of news and advertising deals since past few years. The move would make Ma the latest Internet tycoon to pursue a revival of the newspaper.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos had acquired the Washington Post from the Graham family in 2013 for $250 million.

State-run China Daily later reported that Alibaba was in talks with the SCMP Group on a purchase. Rupert Murdoch sold off a majority of his SCMP stake Malaysian billionaire Robert Kuok back in 1993 and since then the ownership of the Hong Kong’s leading English-language paper has not changed.

The newspapers fall in circulation had affected its earnings and appears to have been plum for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NASDAQ:BABA) Ma’s pickings.

Calls to Alibaba’s office in Hong Kong were not unanswered.

SCMP Group’s shares have been suspended since February 2013 because it did not meet the minimum required percentage of total issued share capital available on the public market.

The South China Morning Post was once the world’s most profitable newspaper. Responding to a question about his interest in buying the SCMP, Jack Ma said earlier this month that he was looking at “a lot of companies right now”.

While the 112-year old newspaper is the group’s most visible asset, it also has other significant operations ranging from magazines to contract printing and recruitment.

In June, Alibaba paid US$ 194 million for a stake in the mainland’s China Business News.