Hong Kong broadcaster i-Cable Communications, which axed 100 jobs on Tuesday, has strong financial backing from some of the richest people locally and in mainland China.

Its stakeholders read like a list of who’s who, including New Development chair Henry Cheng, Far East Consortium chair David Chiu, Guangzhou-based real estate developer R&F Properties founder Li Sze-lim and Lenovo founder Liu Chuanzhi. They are all part of a consortium of billionaires that owns Forever Top (Asia) Limited, which in turns holds 43.22% of i-Cable shares.

Cheng has an estimated wealth of US$20.7 billion, according to Forbes, whereas Li has about US$2.5 billion. Chiu’s assets in Hong Kong-listed companies are worth a total of HK$2.97 billion (US$383 million).

In its announcement, i-Cable cited COVID-19 and a slowing economy as reasons behind the dismissals, which included 40 employees in the news team.

Yet, the company has improved its financial status in recent years. Losses narrowed by 15.92% year on year to HK$176 million in the first half of this year, compared with a loss of HK$390 million for the whole of last year, HK$456 million in 2018 and HK$362 million in 2017.

In December 2018, i-Cable began renting its network to China Mobile and signed a deal to build local telecommunications infrastructure for its Hong Kong subsidiary.

The mass redundancies appeared to be politically motivated, given i-Cable’s sound finances, said Bruce Lui, a senior journalism lecturer of Hong Kong Baptist University who was formerly a chief reporter on the China team of i-Cable News.

Those laid off included the entire team that produced the award-winning investigative reporting program News Lancet, while over at the China desk, the whole news team resigned to support an assistant editor who was among the dismissals.

Lui said that over the years, News Lancet had touched on many sensitive political topics both in Hong Kong and on the mainland, while the China news team had earned international plaudits for its in-depth coverage of the mainland.

As Beijing was keen to keep a grip on Hong Kong’s media, i-Cable management was expected to replace the axed editorial staffers with people it could trust, Lui said, adding that this would signal a regrettable end to the quality reports the broadcaster had produced.

Notable reports by the broadcaster included the 2008 earthquake in the Chinese province of Sichuan and its interview with human rights activist Li Wangyang shortly before his death.

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