FT selling stake in German biz newspaper

The parent company of the Financial Times is planning to sell its stake in a German business newspaper, write Financial Times reporters Gerrit Wiesmann and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson.

They wrote, “Pearson is understood to be close to selling its half-share in FT Deutschland, the Financial Times’s German sister paper, to joint venture partner Gruner + Jahr, ending the UK media group’s foray into foreign language newspapers.

“People familiar with the deal said G+J, controlled by German media group Bertelsmann, had beaten nat­ional rivals Holtzbrinck and Sueddeutsche Zeitung to satisfy Pearson’s asking price of €15m ($21.9m) to €20m.

“G+J was expected to pay about half up-front and the rest in the form of annual licence fees for the brand ‘FT Deutschland’, which it will control for 10 years. The transaction could be ann­oun­ced as early as next week.”

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