Categories: OLD Media Moves

FT accused of jacking up cover price

Louise Armitstead of The Telegraph in London writes that an analyst that follows Pearson Plc, the parent of The Financial Times, has written a scathing report accusing it of unnecessarily increasing the cover price of the paper and that the FT is not worth as much as what has been reported.

Armitstead writes, “The analyst said that Pearson was likely to sell FT Group to focus on its education business but claimed the newspaper is worth just £150m. With its 50pc stake in The Economist magazine, FT Group could fetch £600m to £700m, even with the so-called ‘trophy asset’, Mr Braley said.

“‘To get to a valuation of £1bn seems to rely on that kind of buyer who might also be in the market for football teams, art, pigs with mystical healing powers and trips into space,’ he said.

“‘That does not seem to us to form any reasonable part of an investment thesis.’

“He added: ‘The issue is simply that the FT isn’t a very profitable business, prospective strategic buyers are limited.'”

Read more here.

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.