Categories: OLD Media Moves

Investors want Pearson to sell Financial Times

Richard Wachman of The Observer newspaper in London writes that investors are calling for Pearson Plc to sell The Financial Times newspaper instead of engaging in a war with The Wall Street Journal if News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch is successful in buying the rival paper.

Wachman wrote, “Calls for the divestment of the FT come from powerful Pearson shareholders and leading media analyst Lorna Tilbian, whose views are taken seriously within the City.

“The catalyst for renewed lobbying of Pearson to sell the FT is its scrapping of plans to bid for the Journal through an alliance with General Electric, owner of the CNBC financial news channel.

“Tilbian, who works for Numis Securities, says: ‘The way I see things, it was double or quits for Pearson. They had a chance to buy a principal competitor, but it hasn’t come off. Now they should sell the FT at a time when the financial advertising market is strong and the paper is doing well.'”

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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.