Just minutes after rumors of Axel Springer Verlag's interest in buying The Financial Times were flatly denied, Marketwatch [7]reports that Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei said Thursday that it is buying Financial Times from U.K. publishing group Pearson for 160 billion yen, or $1.29 billion.
Pearson earlier Thursday had confirmed it was in advanced talks on the possible sale of the London-based FT Group, which includes the Financial Times newspaper, but the potential buyer was not disclosed.
Nikkei announced the agreement in an email to subscribers Thursday afternoon U.K. time.
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[8]Nikkei, the Japanese media company, has trumped Germany’s Axel Springer, in a tussle to buy the FT Group from Pearson for £844m, bringing the curtain down on its 58-year ownership of the London-based global news organisation.
Pearson has for the past few weeks been exploring a sale of the group, which comprises the Financial Times, a number of related titles and a 50 per cent stake in the Economist Group, publisher of the Economist magazine.
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Nikkei is one of Japan’s largest publishers with annual sales of about £1bn.
Pearson’s former chief executive Dame Marjorie Scardino had pledged that the FT would be sold “over my dead body”. Her successor John Fallon, who took over in January 2013, has not repeated the pledge but has often said that the FT is integral to Pearson’s commercial and strategic vision.
“If a deal goes ahead, it is imperative that there are independently audited safeguards to protect the independence of the FT,” said Sir David Bell, a former chairman of the FT Group and a former director of Pearson.
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The FT has an editorial team of 500 journalists in more than 50 locations around the world. It was first published as a four-page newspaper in 1888 and was bought by Pearson in 1957.
