--FILE--A Chinese netizen looks at a logo of Alibaba.com in Tianjin, China, 12 December 2015. China's e-commerce giant Alibaba has completed its acquisition of the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's leading English language newspaper. One of its first actions following the takeover was to remove the paywall around the paper's website. The deal to sell the SCMP Group's media businesses, which also includes the local editions of Harpers Bazaar, Esquire, Elle, Cosmopolitan and two Chinese-language websites, was approved by SCMP shareholders last month. The remaining listed company SCMP Group, focused largely on property investment, will be renamed Armada Holdings. The acquisition by a mainland Chinese owner has raised widespread fears that the paper's editorial independence will be compromised, and that free speech in Hong Kong will increasingly be aligned with government-dictated policies in mainland China. Such suggestions have been firmly denied by Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba, who has said that the SCMP's editorial decisions will not be made in the board room. Alibaba is also believed to be examining an investment into Caixin, an investigative financial publication in China, which is close to completing a series C funding round with several institutional investors.
