Alibaba to buy SCMP stake : Caixin

Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma is in talks to buy a stake in the Hong Kong-based newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP), Bloomberg has reported.

The SCMP Group declined to comment.

Although as yet no information has been released regarding the financial details of the deal, a signing ceremony is expected to be announced soon.

Fortune reports that Ma’s proposed acquisition follows in the footsteps of Jeff Bezos.

The 112-year-old newspaper was once reportedly the world’s most profitable newspaper but changing reading habits – like a preference for consuming news online – has presented the publishing house with the challenges in the shape of falling circulation and earnings. In 2012, Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of Facebook Inc., bought a majority stake in the New Republic magazine. Acquiring stakes in SCMP should add to Alibaba growing Media Empire as the company looks to venture more into news and advertising.

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 SCMP Group, which also contains other businesses such as magazines and printing, is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and reported net profits of HK$208.7 million ($26.9 million) in the first half of 2015. In 2013, a reporter for the newspaper quit after quoting Ma as having made remarks in support of Beijing’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Hong Kong got politically separated from China’s mainland and citizens welcomed the decision.