Sun Media Announces Launch of Observer Star

Posted on May 7, 2004

Sun Media Investment Holdings Ltd. has announced that its new financial newspaper, Observer Star, will launch in July, 2004. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the paper will be targeted at the global Chinese community, and will be released simultaneously in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and North America. This will be the world's first Chinese language financial newspaper to be released simultaneously throughout the world's major Chinese markets.

The Observer Star will be published weekly and focuses on the current economic state of China. Characterized by political and financial analysis, reports and carefully selected articles, the paper will also invite experts from various fields worldwide to write special columns, providing various kinds of information on life, culture, local societies and markets. The paper will be targeted at businessmen and readers with mid- to high-level income.

The Observer Star also plans to form strategic alliances with domestic and international financial publishing organizations to ensure the diversity and authoritativeness of its information. It has set up journalist stations in 13 cities so far: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, London, Frankfurt and Paris. The paper's president, Ms. Lu Wei, will make modifications to current industry styles, focusing on the paper's content, layout and distribution.

As a result of recent acquisitions, Sun Media Investment Holdings Ltd. has gained the whole equity of a newspaper distribution network in Hong Kong that has a history of over 30 years. Meanwhile, through purchasing shares in Panpac Media, a Singapore listed company, at the beginning of April this year, it won control over the company's 31 magazines and its publishing and distribution networks in Southeast Asia. Currently, it is in negotiations with newspaper publishers in North America and Taiwan to make the Observer Star reach its anticipated launch date in July. The company forecasts that its weekly circulation will break 100,000 within three months of its launch.

Sun Media Investment Holdings Ltd. is a media investment company wholly owned by Yang Lan, a renowned TV presenter in mainland China, and her husband. Committed to carrying forward traditional Chinese culture and promoting the prosperity of Chinese media, this company engages in various media investments in the greater China region. Thus far, it holds shares in 11 media enterprises, of which five are listed and six are non-listed. It has invested in TV productions; Chinese language cable and satellite channels in Mainland China, the Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Australia, North America; ad agencies; web sites; magazines and newspapers; music and entertainment; and multi-media education.