Financial Times, Wall Street Journal held talks?

Owners of the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal held talks last year about combining operations where the FT would have scaled back its operations in the United States and the Journal would have done the same in Europe, according to an article in London’s Daily Mail.

Reporter James Ashton wrote, “Under plans that could have led to £170m of annual savings, the FT would have scaled back much of its distribution in the US, barring New York.

“The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by media group Dow Jones, would have done the same with its European edition. It is believed the pair would have then combined some back operations such as printing and administration, as well as building up a single internet portal.

“For arch rivals, they are surprisingly close and already have a joint venture in Russia.”

Read more here.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Pearson, the owner of the Financial Times, told Dow Jones that the story about the discussions is “completely untrue.” Read that story here.