Pearson agrees US$1.3b sale of FT
Print Edition
British publishing company Pearson yesterday said it has agreed to sell its salmon-pink flagship business newspaper the Financial Times to Japanese digital media group Nikkei.
Pearson said it will sell the FT Group, which also includes FT.com, for 844 million pounds (US$1.3 billion) in cash.
The deal does not include FT Group’s 50 percent stake in The Economist Group, or the building in London where the paper is based.
“Pearson has been a proud proprietor of the FT for nearly 60 years,” Chief Executive John Fallon said in a statement.
“But we’ve reached an inflection point in media, driven by the explosive growth of mobile and social. In this new environment, the best way to ensure the FT’s journalistic and commercial success is for it to be part of a global, digital news company,” he said.
Tsuneo Kita, chairman and group CEO of Nikkei, said he was “extremely proud to be teaming up with the Financial Times.”
Nikkei Inc, publisher of the Nikkei business daily, is the largest independent business media group in Asia, according to the company.
Shortly before the announcement, Germany’s Axel Springer newspaper group denied it was buying the FT.
The Financial Times has a combined paid print and digital circulation of 720,000, much of which is via its subscriber-only FT.com website, which was launched in 1995.
Asked about the FT’s appeal, Steve Schifferes, professor of financial journalism at London’s City University, said: “The FT has made one of the more successful adaptations to the web, driven by its ability to sell online subscriptions based on its unique information.
“This subscription base also provides advertisers with the ability to reach high-value individuals,” he said.
“However, it still faces challenges from the large number of free business news websites, and its paywall may limit its future growth,” he said.
Launched in 1888, the widely respected Financial Times business daily was purchased by Pearson in 1957.
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