Alibaba is poised to buy a major stake in China Business Network, one of China’s leading financial news operations, according to Chinese media reports. China Business Network is part of the state-controlled Shanghai Media Group.
It is not clear how much of the company Alibaba would acquire, but several media sources point to an investment in the region of RMB1 billion ($162 million).
Alibaba has a growing array of media and financial activities and founder Jack Ma has pointed to building a range of financial services that rival the state-owned banks and institutions. Alibaba offers loans through its Ant Financial arm, online payments through Alipay, operates one of the world’s largest money funds and itself was granted a banking license earlier this year.
Ant Financial and SMG last year agreed to jointly invest RMB390 million ($63 million) in financial software firm Gildata, a subsidiary of Hundsun Technologies. Earlier this week a fund controlled by Ma paid HK$2.7 billion (US$348 million) for a stake in Hong Kong-based financial services company Reorient Group.
Alibaba has investments in numerous media and entertainment businesses including share stakes in Youku Tudou, Enlight Media, Huayi Brothers Media and Wasu Media.
On Tuesday, the separately listed Alibaba Pictures Group confirmed that it is to buy control of Yueke Software Engineering Ltd for RMB830 million ($134 million). The firm provides ticketing services to 1,500 movie cinemas and software to other online ticketing platforms. The deal in principle was announced in April.