Newsweek‘s Latest Bidder: China’s Southern Daily Group
China Daily is reporting that China Southern Daily Group, which is owned by the Guangdong Provincial Communist Party, has tried and failed to buy The Washington Post Co.’s Newsweek, which went on sale in early May.
Says China Daily:
“The offer to Newsweek is a volunteer action of Chinese media professionals and investors,” said Xiang Xi, managing editor of Southern Weekly, a weekly owned by the Group, who was granted an exclusive interview with President Obama during his visit to Beijing last November.
Xiang said that the magazine’s nine language versions were an attractive asset. And then China Daily reports the following, which we will blockquote because it defies paraphrasing.
The head of China’s most influential weekly denied any government involvement in the investments behind the bid for the Washington Post-owned news weekly.
Xiang said the Group partnered B-raymedia, a Shanghai-listed company based in Chengdu of Southwest China’s Sichuan province that owns several metropolis papers, and two other investment funds in the purchase attempt.
Secretary to the board of directors of B-raymedia surnamed Zhang told China Daily that the business talks involving bidding for overseas media have a long way to go.
“It is like dating,” Zhang said, “it doesn’t matter if one date does not like you. You grow from it.”
Forbes China writer Bill Bishop says it’s not surprising that Chinese firms are looking to scoop up vulnerable U.S. media firms, but calls into question both 1) the American government’s willingness to cede such companies to Chinese control; and 2) whether it’s even smart of Chinese companies to do something like that.
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