Publishing News
- Leading business newspaper eyes IPO
Date: 9-Mar-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
21ST Century Media, the manager and publisher of leading financial newspaper the 21st Century Business Herald, is planning a domestic initial public offering (IPO) in 2007 to fund expansion, media management sources said Thursday.
'They are hungry for money as they have set a very aggressive plan for business expansion in 2008,'said one publishing source in Shanghai. 'They have been trying to go public to raise capital for more than a year and now it's possible to list this year.'
It was not known how much 21st Century plans to raise, although the sources expected the newspaper would raise 'several hundred million yuan?through the IPO.
A number of major domestic brokerages have pitched 21st Century, a subsidiary of Nanfang Daily Press Group, for a potential initial public offering on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the sources said.
Nanfang Daily Press Group is the top shareholder of 21st Century Media and its other major investors include self-made billionaire Guo Guangchang.
Guo, a teacher-turned entrepreneur, was ranked by the Forbes magazine as the 9th-richest Chinese businessman in 2006. Guo is supportive of the 21st Century listing plan, the sources said.
Its domestic IPO plan comes after the media company, based in the southern province of Guangzhou, gave up its original idea to list abroad last year on concerns that it might be more difficult to win government support for an overseas IPO, the sources said.
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