Restructuring of China’s Book Publishing Industry: No News Here for Foreign Investors
Perhaps a poor choice of headlines from the Financial Times on this book publishing story. “China to Loosen Control of Book Publishing,” at least to me, suggests that the State might start allowing in foreign investors.
Bad assumption on my part. Looks like a restructuring for business reasons, the usual pattern whereby a domestic monolith is transformed into a leaner, financially stable entity that can go out and compete internationally as well as dominate at home.
At least I think that’s the idea.
China’s largest publishing house intends to transform itself from a propaganda vehicle into a global player as it spearheads Beijing’s plans to restructure the industry while keeping it under state control.
Nie Zhenning, president of the China Publishing Group, told the Financial Times that he hoped Beijing would regroup the publishing industry into two state-owned conglomerates. After an initial public offering, Mr Nie’s company would then seek to acquire players at the provincial level.
Keeping all this under State control means no meaningful new opportunities for foreign companies. Maybe in the future, if the restructured entities want to do a great deal more business overseas, they will have to make some concessions on the China market. Wouldn’t hold my breath on that in the short term, though.
That’s not quite true Stan. Wait for the identity of the lead investors in the IPO. They’re not Chinese.
That would be interesting. I suppose at that point, the question would be whether the investment was one of those bank-type buy-ins (which haven’t worked out all that well) or a real strategic relationship.
Definitely an industry to watch.
I can tell you a hedge fund is involved, an e-tech publisher, and a film production business. An interesting mix. Decent privately owned China publishing businesses and titles are about to rocket in value. I hope so. Its about time I made some money from China Briefing!
Hey, I’m all for any development that increases the value of good writing. Don’t take the first offer!
Ha ha thanks Stan! We’ve had numerous offers over the years, turned them all down, but it’s been a tough job at times keeping us independent and out of the hands of envious China state publishers. But we’re still hanging in there. China Briefing is now a seperate stand alone business from the firm incidentally. Turnover is into millions now, so not too shabby for a restricted industry. We’ll keep it independent as long as we can. Adding Russia Briefing to our portfolio in May…and busy in India finishing the legal & tax sections of our new India Briefing Guide at present. Come see me in Mumbai! Cheers CDE