Tsai Eng-meng lived up to his bulldog reputation with Next purchase
Criticism of Taiwanese media mogul for being close to Beijing made him more determined to buy Next assets
Perhaps the best way to sum up Tsai Eng-meng's character is to call him, as a friend of his did, "a wilful bulldog with unyielding fighting spirit".
He made the deal happen despite harsh criticism and accusations that he was trying to control Taiwan's opinion market or that he was acting in the interests of Beijing by looking to serve as its mouthpiece on the island. In doing so, he took over the Taiwanese interests of Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying - an unrelenting critic of the Communist Party.
November 27 was an important day for Taiwan's richest man, head of the Taiwan-based snack food giant Want Want Holdings, who built up his fortune through the rice cracker business he established on the mainland in 1994.
Marathon negotiations that began that afternoon and ended close to midnight in an upscale hotel in Macau secured victory for him in his first battle for control of a sizeable stake in Next Media's Taiwanese print media. His second battle is with the island's regulators, who have yet to approve the purchase.
Given his fighting spirit and the wealth he has, victory was a "must" for Tsai, who was reported by Forbes magazine in May to have a net worth of US$8 billion.
"This will enable them to know me better so that they can accurately report what I am like exactly in the future," he said, referring to Next Media's Taiwanese reporters, who have been highly critical of him. He made the comment during an interview with The Journalist news weekly in Taipei on November 22, when asked why he wanted so much to buy the Next Media's Taiwanese print business.