Bridgehead Media out of business

via WikipediaThe unconfirmed rumors on the formerly famous advertising company Bridgehead Media in Shanghai going down following charges of fraud and even a police investigation showed up already last week on my radar screen. Since I had no time to follow up, nor had any of the other English language media as far as I could notice, Danwei is the first to publish on the demise of the company.
Danwei quotes an email:

"I am sure you have already heard that Bridgehead Media is closed and out of business, (former CEO) Greg Burnard has been misrepresenting a false investor as well as a false attorney, additionally he committed fraud and embezzlement of company funds. He is currently being sought by the police and it is our understanding he has already vacated his flat and is on the move, please let us know if you hear or see him as this will be passed to the authorities. Additionally in regards to freelance payments, as the company is out of business there will be no freelance payments available."

It mean that two papers related to the China Daily, the Shanghai Star and the Shanghai Star Business Journal, have gone down, taking along up to 40 jobs.
Bridgehead media became a success story in Shanghai as they took on the advertising side of the Shanghai Daily. Foreign companies cannot get involved in the editorial business of a state-owned newspaper (and they are all state-owned or illegal), but Bridgehead came as close to what a foreign company could do with the Chinese media, and did it successfully.
At the end of last year the Shanghai Daily decided they could do this job by themselves and kicked out unceremoniously Bridgehead media. Whether at that time already fraudulent practices were at the base of this divorce is unclear, but when Bridghead turned to the competitor China Daily.
The stories last week were already interesting enough, involving false MOU's on letters with the letterhead of a non-existing law firm. A group of people have been cheated out of their money, up to one million Renminbi in the case of a Hong Kong investor. I hope somebody has the resources to write up the whole story, that could be a very interesting chapter in the history of English language media in China.