=UPDATED= Next Media Parceled Out to Five Buyers

Tea pickers on the slopes of Alishan

UPDATE: I'm moving this to the top. Finally heard the reason for the fifth buyer. By adding the fifth buyer, they can separate the print and TV portions of the deal, meaning that the NCC can't impose the same condition of separation of cable TV and print they tried to before. The new deal also reduces Jeffrey Koo Jr's holding to just below the threshold required by the FSC. Next Media, as a friend observed, had the most powerful investigative team in the business. How much longer do you think that will remain true?

Student protests in front of the FTC and the legislative Yuan all day too. But the number is too small to gain international media attention, judging from the photos.

Adventures in Charity, episode #249:
I'm buying tickets at the Chiayi train station on Sunday with a big pile of 100 NT notes. A girl behind me in line leans forward and asks if I could loan her $100. I said sure, no problem, and slipped her a 100 NT note. She then asked me how she could pay me back. "What's your phone number?" "Forget it," I said, "I don't live here. You don't have to pay me back." Suddenly she looked at me crossly. "Hey!" she barked. "What kind of attitude is that?"

I put that tale there because you'll need some light humor to deal with the Next Media deal. A friend summed up the five buyers of Jimmy Lai's Next Media thusly:

• Chinatrust Charity Foundation chairman, Jeffrey Koo Jr.
• Formosa Plastics Group chairman, William Wong
• Want Want China Times Group chairman, Tsai Eng-meng
• Lung Yen Life Service Co. chairman, Lee Shih-tsung
• Taiwan Fire and Marine Insurance Co. chairman, Lee Tai-hung.

Businessweek explained the deal, inked in Macau for tax purposes:

Next Media will sell its Taiwan print assets to four investors including Want Want Chinatimes Group President Tsai Shao-Chung, William Wong of the Formosa Plastics Group, Chinatrust Charity Foundation Chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr. and Lung Yen Life Service Corp. (5530) Chairman Lee Shih-tsung, Simon said.

Lai, known for criticizing the Chinese government, is exiting most of his Taiwan businesses after battling regulators for licenses and distribution rights. The investment by Tsai, son of Want Want China Holdings Ltd. (151) Chairman Tsai Eng-meng, may raise regulatory concerns as Lai’s Apple Daily and the Tsais’ China Times will have a combined newspaper market share exceeding 45 percent, according to National Chung Cheng University’s Kuang Chung-Hsiang.

...

Lee Tai-hung, chairman of Taiwan Fire & Marine Insurance Co. (2832), replaces Tsai in the group buying the television assets, Simon said. The pacts were signed yesterday, he said.

The deal requires approval from the Fair Trade Commission, the National Communications Commission, and the Financial Supervisory Commission. Each may find reason to balk. The FSC had objected to Jeffrey Koo Jr's 7% stake in a financial firm (blogged). The Fair Trade Commission may not like the 45% share of the media market it gives the Tsai media operations. The National Communications Commission, you may recall, gave tentative approval but required Tsai to sell off his cable TV operations. Tsai gave the NCC the digitus impudicus, and the case is now in the courts.

The articles in the international media tended to (wrongly) frame the issue as a pro/anti-China affair. For example, the AP article on the deal is solid as far as it goes, but it wrongly characterized the student protests as anti-China when they are pro-democracy. The business publications covering the story pointed out that it is likely that the Tsai-owned media will go soft on China's territorial expansion and other problems, but failed to mention that Apple and Next Media also provide independent coverage of domestic corporate shenanigans, including environmental stories that other media don't publish.

Also, I heard tell of a rumor running around that one of Taiwan's online media outfits, NOWNEWS or ETTODAY, is going to be bought by a Chinese firm. Take with NaCl.....

ADDED: Taipei Times editorial on the sale.
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Early Harvest List Reaps Harvest of Sorrow

Formosa Plastics, one of the most powerful firms on the island, expressed unhappiness about the results of the recent round of ECFA talks. Those Planes Loaded With Cargo just can't seem to land....

The chief executive of Formosa Plastics Group, Taiwan's largest petrochemical conglomerate, expressed disappointment Thursday that the petrochemical sector was not included on the "early harvest" list under a proposed trade pact with China.

Wang Wen-yuan urged the government to pay more attention to the old economy industries and continue efforts to support the sector by winning consensus with China to include the petrochemical sector on Taiwan's list of items and services that will enjoy tariff waivers or an easier market access upon the signing of the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China.

Taiwan and China wrapped up the third round of ECFA negotiations Sunday and reached consensus on the context of the pact, including the "early harvest" lists of each side.

A government official who demanded anonymity had said earlier this week that polyvinyl chloride and polypropylene have been excluded from the "early harvest" list.

Also not on the list were automobiles, which means that the rationale for the VW investment here in Taiwan just went POOF. Wang also said that the firm's rivals in Korea, Japan, and southeast Asia are expanding their capacities, meaning that brutal price wars are probably on the way, especially if the economy of China goes KA-BOOM. Which means that after capacity expansion to take advantage of government subsidies, Formosa Plastics will next scream either for more subsidies or protection. [sonorous voice] "The petrochemical industry is too big to fail...." The whole rationale for that brontosaurian industrial complex down in Mailiao with its steel plant and naptha cracker is the China market.....

REFERENCE: China Post article outlining the sectors covered. And don't miss these comments from Yen Ching-piao about economics and the environment.
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