China's Time Warner? More Mainland media buzz

The South China Morning Post reports:

CHINA: PUBLISHER UNVEILS GOAL TO BE CHINA'S TIME WARNER

SEEC Holdings, the publisher of Chinese financial magazine Caijing, has laid out an aggressive plan to become China's Time Warner and the largest magazine group in the country ... Chairman Wang Boming said SEEC's goal of becoming China's leading magazine group could be achieved in three to five years when the group expands its magazine portfolio from the existing five titles to between 30 and 50.

"Give us three to five years; we will be the largest magazine group in China. We have all the qualified people in the magazine business," he said. But to reach the scale of Time Warner, which generates nearly US$6 billion in sales revenue a year from its 140-strong magazine titles, would take much longer, he added.

If they want to be China's Time Warner, they might also want to consider buying a few TV stations and movie studios, Internet portals, production houses, and other assests worth several billions dollars. But people do so like to talk big in this country.

Hype notwithstanding, Wang Boming and with Hu Shuli (editor of Caijing) are certainly one of the most powerful teams in Chinese media. It doesn't harm that SEEC is apparently owned by the body that control's China's stock markets.

Danwei has not been able to locate any public documents detailing the ownership structure of SEEC, but the company is very well connected.

The South China Morning Post story is archived on Asia Pacific Media Network here. SEEC's basic website is here. A Finance Asia article about Caijing magazine with more information about Wang Boming is here.