Tsuneo Kita

127 year old Financial Times sold to Nikkei for £844m in cash

Tsuneo Kita
Tsuneo Kita

ft

The 127-year old Financial Times. one of famous and strongest brand, is being sold to Japanese media firm Nikkei for £844m in cash, according to Publishing group Pearson  There is advertisement used to be “No FT, No Comment”

The sale however, does not include Pearson’s 50% stake in the Economist or the FT’s London office at One Southwark Bridge. according to the company in its statement.  After hearing the new the shares in the group closed up more than 2 per cent.

“Pearson, the  proprietor of the FT for nearly 60 years, have reached an inflection point in media, driven by the explosive growth of mobile and social media”, said Pearson’s chief executive John Fallon.”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 continued.

The Financial Times Group consists of the “Pink-un”, Investors Chronicle, the Banker, MandateWire, Money-Media and Medley Global Advisor.

Pearson, which also owns a large stake in the book publisher Penguin Random House, has long been thought ready to sell the newspaper.

 

Last year, the group, which gets 90% of its revenues from its educational book publishing business, reported a 12.5% fall in net profit to £471m.

The Financial Times, which launched in 1888, has a combined paid print and digital circulation of 720,000, but 70% of its readership is generated through its website, as the digital subscriptions overtook print circulation in 2012, while tablets and smartphones account for about half of traffic to the website.

Nikkei is Asia’s largest independent business media group. It owns the flagship newspaper Nikkei and other operations, ranging from books and magazines to digital media, database services and broadcasting.

The company’s chairman and chief executive Tsuneo Kita said: “I am extremely proud of teaming up with the Financial Times, one of the most prestigious news organisations in the world.

“Our motto of providing high-quality reporting on economic and other news, while maintaining fairness and impartiality, is very close to that of the FT. “We share the same journalistic values. Together, we will strive to contribute to the development of the global economy.”