Shares in Ming Pao owner surge on Alibaba rumours

HONG KONG: Shares in the owner of Hong Kong-based newspaper Ming Pao shot up yesterday on rumours that Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Limited was in talks to buy it, days after it snapped up the city’s South China Morning Post.

The report of the potential buyout came as fears grow that China is trying to influence the city’s media in the wake of prodemocracy rallies last year.

Alibaba denied outright that it was in talks to buy the newspaper.

But shares in Ming Pao’s owner, Media Chinese International Limited, soared 38% in Hong Kong morning trade following the report in the Australian Financial Review, which quoted an unnamed source.

Gains narrowed in the afternoon. Trading closed at HK$1.22 (US$0.16) per share, up 12%, compared to a 0.8% gain for the benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Ming Pao is a liberal Chinese-language newspaper that has been critical of Beijing.

Its former editor Kevin Lau was the victim of a vicious daylight knife attack in 2014, which sparked concerns that journalists in Hong Kong were being targeted.

The Australian Financial Review said the source had “direct knowledge” of the deal and that “ongoing” talks could take months to complete.

However, an Alibaba spokesman told AFP: “We are not in talks to buy the ( Ming Pao) paper.”

Concerns are growing over press freedoms in Hong Kong after a string of attacks on journalists, reports of pressure on editorial staff from authorities and increasing self-censorship.

Hong Kong is semi-autonomous after being handed back to China by Britain in 1997 and retains freedoms unseen on the mainland.

However, there are fears that they are being eroded, particularly since last year’s mass pro-democracy protests in the city and the rejection of China’s political reform package in June — an unprecedented rebuke to Beijing.