DisContent: DJ's M&A Team in China; HuffPo's Real Valuation
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Some rumor busting and rumor testing:
-- Dow Jones' M&A team was in China last week, our sources says. What were they doing? Some sources say they were looking at ChinaWeb, the parent company of Chinese financial information portal Hexun. DJ was looking at it last year as well, and rumors about a transaction leaked out then but nothing happened....Reuters came in later and bought a stake. Founded in 1996, Hexun is now one of China's largest financial information portals. Is DJ now looking to acquire it fully, or is it still talking about a stake? If they do take a stake, this would be the second JV stake between Reuters and DJ: the two took equal stakes in Factiva, and later Reuters sold it off to the latter.
-- HuffPo is out raising its next round of funding, as has been leaked in the last few weeks. It is aiming for another $10 million or so. but the valuation numbers leaked were, well, plain wrong. Our sources say the valuation is more in the $50M-$60M range. That, while still lofty, is more "real", despite the company's big gains in traffic and reputation with an election year. Meanwhile, the site is now expanding into local news/politics, and has just started a Chicago edition..with this expansion, the money raised will surely be needed. Disclaimer: Both HuffPo and our company share an investor: Greycroft Partners.
By Rafat Ali