The Board announce that on 5 March 2013, the Group, through Modern Media Company Limited (“ MMCL ”), an indirectly wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, entered into a non-legally binding term sheet (“ Term Sheet ”) with Agence France-Presse (“ AFP ”). Under the Term Sheet and subject to the signing of the definitive cooperation agreement, AFP agrees to cooperate with the Group for a ten-year period to provide a multi-media lifestyle/culture/fashion/arts/offbeat service in Chinese language (the “Service”) based on the Group’s local content and AFP’s global news content (including international lifestyle content from its longtime partner Relaxnews) available for distribution and sale to prospective publishers and end-users globally; develop an internet platform where the Service is to be displayed and viewed by internet users; and develop a mobile application where the Service is to be displayed and made available for mobile end-users.
The Board is of the view that, if the cooperation with AFP is materialized, the Service will strengthen the Group’s existing leading position in lifestyle, art and culture themes publications, and will also create a new business model in digital media.
Meanwhile, by leveraging the global network of AFP and benefiting from the international lifestyle content of the AFP-Relaxnews service, the Group could create a new business model to distribute contents of the Service to fellow international and domestic publishers. The Board is also of the view that the proposed cooperation with AFP, followed by the previous co-operations with Bloomberg (USA), Numero (France), Economist (UK), and The New York Times (USA), marks another major milestone of the
Group’s attempt to become a global media group, representing the elite culture of China.