Categories: OLD Media Moves

Financial Times parent to sell stake in German biz newspaper

Aaron Patrick and Marcus Walker of The Wall Street Journal write Tuesday that Pearson, the parent company of The Financial Times, is negotiating to sell its stake in a German business newspaper.

Patrick and Walker wrote, “Over the years, some investors have called on Pearson to concentrate on its larger educational and book-publishing businesses and sell the Financial Times. Pearson Chief Executive Marjorie Scardino has long said she doesn’t want to sell the paper.

“‘When I go to China and want to see the minister of education, he sees me not because I’m the world’s biggest education business but because I’m the owner of the FT,’ she said in July.

“A Pearson spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment. News of the talks was first reported in Handelsblatt, a German newspaper.

“A person familiar with the matter said that Spiegel and Gruner Jahr would be allowed to retain the FT name and that journalists at the Financial Times and Financial Times Deutschland would continue to cooperate.”

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.