(Bloomberg) - Binance Holdings Ltd., parent of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is making a strategic investment of $200 million into the more than 100 year-old news publisher Forbes.
Patrick Hillmann, Binance’s chief communications officer, and Bill Chin, head of Binance Labs, its venture capital arm, will join the Forbes board when the transaction closes.
Forbes agreed to go public last year through a merger with blank-check firm Magnum Opus Acquisition Ltd. The business combination is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, with the company trading under the New York Stock Exchange ticker FRBS.
Forbes’ editorial operation will continue to be “very independent,” Changpeng Zhao, founder and chief executive of Binance, said during a CNBC interview. Binance will help the organization with its crypto and blockchain strategies, such as exploring issuing nonfungible tokens, introducing read-to-earn and accepting Bitcoins for subscriptions, he said. The deal is part of Binance’s broader strategy to work with companies across traditional industries and bring them into what’s known as web3.
Forbes is “already a resource for people interested in the emerging world of digital assets,” Mike Federle, chief executive of Forbes, said in a statement. “With Binance’s investment in Forbes, we now have the experience, network and resources of the world’s leading crypto exchange.”
The investment from Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, is part of a $400 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) deal.
Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with Forbes in providing news and financial information.
By Ben Bartenstein and Yueqi Yang
