Taiwanese tycoon Tsai Eng-meng, chairman of Want Want China, the Taiwanese snack maker and mainland's largest producer of rice cakes, has reached an agreement with Taiwan's media firm China Times Group (CTG). However, the details of the deal were not revealed.

According to Bloomberg, Lin Sheng-fen, president of the China Times, was hopeful that the deal would be completed, while an official announcement "could be quite quick" yesterday.

Tsai, whose net worth is estimated at $2.6 billion, won over Jimmy Lai's Next Media in the controlling of the 58-year-old Taiwanese publisher. The deal will add at least one weekly magazine, two daily newspapers and three Taiwanese television channels to Tsai's 51 percent stake in Want Want China.

It had been reported that Next Media, the Hong Kong-listed publisher of the Apple Daily might pay NT$20 billion ($660 million) to buy its Taiwanese competitor China Times.

Various reports published in the Taiwan Economic Daily News and Taiwan Apple Daily on Nov 4, 2008 reported that Want Want China had acquired shareholding interest in the CTG which is operating various media businesses in Taiwan.

It was reported by Taipai-based Economic Daily on Tuesday that Want Want China planned to buy China Times Group for NT$20.4 billion ($673.2 million). "The two have signed a memorandum for the planned transactions, which will include two television-channel operators, a weekly magazine, as well as the China Times and the Commercial Times newspapers," Economic Daily said.

The company, however, made an announcement from a stock exchange filing to clarify that the investment was a personal investment of Tsai and his family and it was not involved in the investment to acquire CTG yesterday.

"On Nov 3, 2008, Tsai Eng-meng, the chairman and an executive director of the company, along with his family members has entered into an agreement with Albert Yu, the controlling shareholder of CTG, for investing in CTG," the company statement said.

"The investment is a personal investment of the Tsai family and is financed entirely by the Tsai family's own source of funds," the statement said.

China Times was founded by Yu's father Yu Chi-chung in 1950 and the media business began as a business tabloid called Cheng Hsin News.

Its TV arm, CTi, is ranked fifth in Taiwan with an 11 percent audience share. The group's news channel ranks third while its variety channel is ranked 10th out of about 20 channels. Its advertising revenue was $52 million last year.

(HK Edition 11/05/2008 page2)