Caixin

The Caixin Insight Group is Caixin's data and intelligence arm with Gao Erji as its executive president.[8][9] Established in 2015, it provides financial data products to Chinese institutional investors. As a sister company of Caixin Media, Caixin Insight Group focuses on providing Chinese business with financial databases, macroeconomic research, big-data analytics, smart beta indexes and strategy consulting services.[8]

The Caixin China PMI, is one of China's most closely watched economic indexes, and is compiled and published monthly by IHS Markit; it is often cited by market watchers and media. Caixin Media took over sponsorship of Markit's China PMI from HSBC in 2015,[10] and the research team of Caixin Insight provides analysis for the index.

Caixin launched a simple English-language news site called "Caixin Online" in 2010, translating a small number of its Chinese stories each day for foreign readers. In 2016, it greatly expanded that presence with the establishment of a separate company called Caixin Global, with Hu Shuli as CEO and Li Xin as managing director. It included a new English language news app, a new English language website (www.caixinglobal.com) upgraded from Caixin Online, and a range of customized business intelligence services under the banner of Caixin Global Intelligence.[11]

In April 2018, Caixin Global and CITIC Capital jointly acquired the international business information unit of Britain's Euromoney for $180.5 million, marking one of the biggest offshore purchases ever by a mainstream Chinese media company. The unit, Global Market Intelligence Division (GMID), was a provider of global financial information and data in over 15 languages, with a focus on emerging markets. GMID's two main units are CEIC and EMIS.[12][13]

Caixin Media was established in January 2010, created subsequently to the departure of Hu Shuli and the majority of the editors and reporters at Caijing Magazine in November 2009.[14] The original staff of Caixin Media is composed entirely of employees from Caijing.

Caijing is a financial news magazine.[15] It was founded by Hu Shuli in 1998 and was managed by the Stock Exchange Executive Council (SEEC[16]) whose chairman is Wang Boming, The magazine's ability to push the boundaries in news coverage largely depends on the political protection afforded by SEEC, its well-connected backer.[17]

In November 2009, Hu Shuli resigned from Caijing along with a large portion of Caijing's journalists after weeks of conflicts with Caijing's controller over issues including "its coverage of sensitive current affairs stories".[17] The magazine had been well known for its investigative reporting and in-depth business articles; but its backer, according to departing employees, wanted it "to move away from investigative journalism towards straight coverage of business, in the mode of Fortune".[17] The pressure to focus on finance had mounted substantially since the explosion of ethnic violence in Xinjiang in July 2009; reporters at Caijing received orders from SEEC to remove sensitive stories, despite SEEC's promises not to interfere in editorial decision-making.[15] Except that, there were also disputes over wages.[17]

Jeremy Goldkorn, founder and editor of Danwei, a China-focused blog, called Hu's departure from Caijing "a big loss for SEEC".[17] "No one will take Caijing seriously now," he said. "Hu Shuli is almost half the brand, if not more."[17]

Two months after splitting with Caijing, Hu Shuli established Caixin Media and became the executive editor of a new publication called Caixin Weekly.[15]

Caixin Media was invested by various parties. Hu secured a 40-million yuan investment from Zhejiang Daily Press Group, the state-owned newspaper conglomerate, for a 40 percent stake in Caixin.[18] Zhejiang Daily had sought to sell a 19.77 percent stake in Caixin for 56 million yuan in 2011, but later withdrew the sale.[18] In July 2012, Hu won another shot in the arm when Tencent, one of China's largest internet firms, became Caixin's newest stockholder with an undisclosed amount of shares.[18] In December 2013, China Media Capital (CMC), one of China's leading investment and operating platforms in media and entertainment, internet and mobile, and lifestyle,[19] said that it had purchased 40% stake in Caixin Media from Zhejiang Daily Press Group, thus becoming the largest shareholder.[18] Li Ruigang, the chairman of CMC, said, "My fund and I are very honored to become a part of Caixin"; "Our common goal is to build a China-based financial media platform with international influences."[18]

Caixin Media initially offered content from its website, caixin.com, and its mobile app for free, but charged for the electronic version of its signature magazine. On November 6th, 2017, it set up a paywall for caixin.com, becoming the first major Chinese publication to put most of its online content behind a paywall.[20]

The paywall's introduction was part of Caixin's efforts to protect content from copyright infringement and to boost revenue.[21] In May 2018, Hu Shuli, in a speech to students at Renmin University of China, said that many readers had subscribed since testing of the paywall model began in 2016, proving that the market had a positive response to the paywall model.[22]

In an interview in November 2018, one year after the paywall's introduction, Hu Shuli said Caixin had more than 200,000 digital annual subscribers.[23] Caixin's Chinese language website caixin.com receives approximately 130 million page views per month from 50 million unique visitors.[21] Hu said that readership had risen steadily.[24]