Binance is making a $200 million strategic investment into the digital publisher Forbes. The move will enable Forbes to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker FRBS.
According to an article just published by CNBC, Binance will step in to replace 50% of the $400 million commitments by institutional investors who had developed cold feet over the Forbes SPAC deal.
The Investors had been announced by Forbes in August of last year, but given the more sceptical view of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies that is now prevalent among many investors, those backing the Forbes listing were happy to stand aside and let Binance take over their investments.
The deal now means that Binance is among the top two largest shareholders of Forbes. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange also receives two seats on the Forbes nine seat board of directors.
Forbes is a venerable member of the world’s media, founded more than a century ago by the grand-father of the present day editor-in-chief Steve Forbes. The company says that its articles, magazines, and events reach around 150 million people.
Binance exchange, led by CEO Changpeng Zhao, is now well and truly a powerful market leader. Zhao, commonly known as CZ, is said to be worth around $96 billion, as per Bloomberg News. This makes him the richest figure in the entire cryptocurrency sector.
The Binance move into publishing is a sign that the crypto giant believes that this is an important infrastructure acquisition that will go along with the trend in Web 3.0.
According to the CNBC article, Binance is said to have approached Forbes after identifying three potential media platforms for investment.
Opinion
There is already much institutional investment into mainstream media platforms. Given the amount of bias that this can engender, it is to be hoped that Binance and Forbes will do their best to take a neutral tone on news. There will be much interest as to how the Forbes platform may change over the coming months and years.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
