Xinhua Finance moves into advertising

We have been following for a while the emergence of Chinese financial information services such as Xinhua Finance and China Finance. We were interested to see an announcement that Xinhua Finance has acquired Chinese advertising group Ming Shing International.

It seems a step away from the core activity of disseminating financial information but also reveals Xinhua Finance's ambitions of extending its capabilities, Bloomberg-like, into a much wider range of business-related media services. The deal announcement says that Ming Shing "specializes in TV, radio and print, which are the same domains that Xinhua Finance is moving into to leverage its content". It's hard to see what else an advertising company could specialise in, but this does provide a clear signal of Xinhua's intent.

Tokyo Mother's board-listed Xinhua Finance, headed up by American Fredy Bush, recently acquired Beijing Century Media Culture, which produces TV programmes in China, and financial magazine publisher EconWorld. Ming Shing is expected to add US$25 million to Xinhua Finance's revenues, and $6mn to EDITDA