New boss, and backing, for Hu Shuli’s Caixin Media group

Hu Shuli, one of China’s most respected and high-profile journalists, is getting a new boss – as well as renewed financial and political backing.

China Media Capital (CMC), a government-backed, 5 billion-yuan investment fund that counts some of the country’s largest state-owned media and financial firms as its shareholders, said on Thursday that it had purchased a stake in Caixin Media Co., the Beijing-based media group Hu has run for the past four years.

Li Ruigang, the chairman of CMC, made the announcement at the closing ceremony of a financial conference hosted by Caixin in Beijing on Thursday evening. Neither CMC nor Caixin disclosed the exact size of the stake or the transaction price.  

“My fund and I are very honoured to become a part of Caixin,” Li said in his speech. "Our common goal is to build a China-based financial media platform with international influences," he added. 

According to sources close to the deal, CMC has bought a 40 per cent stake in Caixin from Zhejiang Daily Press Group, thus becoming the largest shareholder of Hu's group, which operates four Beijing-based magazines and a financial news website. It also places the outspoken Hu under the wings of Li Ruigang, 44, one of the most powerful executives in China’s state-run media industry. 

Li is currently the president of Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group, a state conglomerate encompassing print, broadcast, film and real estate assets across the city, as well as chairman of the 5-billion yuan fund. He had also briefly served as the deputy secretary general of the Shanghai municipal government between 2011 and last year.