Kerry Media acquired a 34.9 percent stake in the newspaper company from News Corp. for $349 million in 1993.

Based on SCMP’s last traded share price of HK$2.50, Kerry would have to pay $300 million for the remaining shares.

The Post used to be the world’s most profitable newspaper during most of the 1990s, and has a circulation of nearly 100,000. Its closest rival, The Standard, became a free paper in order to increase readership.

SCMP’s share price has eclipsed 15 percent in 2007, against a 30 percent rise in Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index, according to the Financial Times.

Catherine Leung, an analyst at Citi Investment Research, said this shows “concerns over the effects of a Hong Kong stock exchange decision to stop requiring that corporate announcements be printed in full in newspapers as of June."

Such notices made up 20 percent of the SCMP’s revenues, and the bourse’s decision would have a “material impact” on the paper’s earnings, she added. “The SCMP has been struggling and the outlook is very unfavourable going into the second half of the financial year. If the company is taken private that may help avoid public scrutiny.”

Kuok’s offer for SCMP shares comes four years after his unsuccessful $3.5 billion bid to privatise Kerry Properties during a property downturn. Minority shareholders rejected the offer after an independent financial adviser said it was “not fair and reasonable,” the Financial Times reported.

SCMP shares lifted 4.6 percent before being suspended pending a formal announcement of the tender.