Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce platform, has confirmed that it will buy the South China Morning Post, a widely read English language newspaper in Hong Kong, for $266 million.
The last high profile internet company buyout of a legacy publication was two years ago, when Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, for the comparable sum of $250 million.
The Alibaba deal includes licences for other Hong Kong media including Elle, Cosmopolitan and Harper's Bazaar. It has raised concerns that China is tightening its grip on Hong Kong. Editorial independence will be compromised, critics have said.
Alibaba has denied that editorial independence will be compromised. "In fact... we think the world needs a plurality of views when it comes to China coverage. China’s rise as an economic power and its importance to world stability is too important for there to be a singular thesis," said Joseph C. Tsai, executive vice chairman of the Alibaba Group.
The South China Morning post was previously owned by the Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok who had close ties to the Chinese Government.
In a letter to readers, Tsai said Alibaba wanted to marry its technology with the "deep heritage" of the South China Morning Post.
"We see a compelling business case for the acquisition because we believe that Alibaba is best positioned to take the SCMP to the next level. The foundation for this work must be the quality of the content. And what underpins this will be editorial excellence: a clear pre-requisite to maintaining readers’ trust and, ultimately, achieving commercial success. Be assured, we get that," he said.
Alibaba said it will take down the paywall on SCMP.com and announced plans to dedicate "additional resources" to the paper.
