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| Alibaba to buy Hong Kong's South China Morning Post | Alibaba to buy Hong Kong's South China Morning Post |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Chinese internet giant Alibaba is to buy Hong Kong-based newspaper the South China Morning Post (SCMP). | |
| The terms of the deal were not revealed, but SCMP has a market value of HK$3bn ($392m; £258.5m) according to Thomson Reuters. | |
| Alibaba will remove the paywall from the paper's website to make its content freely available. | |
| Alibaba said the title was unique because it covered news from China in the English language. | |
| Such coverage is in demand by readers globally who want to understand the world's second-largest economy, said Joe Tsai, Alibaba Group's executive vice chairman. | |
| In a letter to readers, Mr Tsai said: "We see the perfect opportunity to marry our technology with the deep heritage of the SCMP to create a vision of news for the digital age." | |
| He added: "Only through additional resources will the SCMP be able to stay true to its core values of quality, integrity and trust." | |
| Robin Hu, chief executive of SCMP, said it welcomed Alibaba's commitment to invest in the title. | |
| "With proven expertise especially in mobile internet, Alibaba is in an excellent position to leverage technology to create content more efficiently and reach a global audience." | |
| The paper was founded in 1903 but profits and sales have in recent years been hit by the same declines as newspapers in many countries. | |
| The deal also includes licences for the Hong Kong editions of magazines including Elle, Cosmopolitan and Harper's Bazaar. |