The Financial Times is interested in acquiring tech news site The Information, which is run by former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin, according to a report on Flashes & Flames.
Flashes & Flames writes, “She used family money to start the San Francisco-based business and owns it 100%. It’s a funding model that has imposed a distinctly unfashionable sense of financial discipline – and has given her independence. But the obvious question she has been debating with a small group of advisors is: how to grow from here? She has identified fintech, biotech and media as key areas of expansion.
“The 900k-subscribers FT (for which Lessin has sometimes expressed admiration) likes her strategy and has been discussing ways it could help to accelerate the growth, especially in Asia. The FT’s global reputation as a solid long-term supporter of quality journalism and also a supportive business partner has more than survived its 2015 acquisition by Nikkei. It could be a great fit for The Information if they get the structure and the deal right.
“Lessin has said: ‘We are pretty ambitious and we don’t want to close off an opportunity because it means joining up with an investor. But it would have to be a case of an investor helping us to go after a big opportunity we couldn’t go after alone.’ Is that the signal the FT was looking for?”
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