Racing Post set for £190m FL Group acquisition

by Alex Donohue, Brand Republic 06-Jun-07, 09:00

LONDON - The Racing Post could be sold for £190m to an Irish investment firm, Festina Lente Group, beating at least two other rival bids for the Trinity Mirror horseracing title.

FL Partners is understood to have entered into exclusive negotiations with Trinity Mirror's investment bankers NM Rothschild over the sale of Racing Post, which is believed to have also attracted a joint bid from private equity firms Veronis Suhler Stevenson and Equity, and one from the private equity division of Goldman Sachs.

Dublin-based FL Partners, which is run by the former executives of IBI Corporate Finance Peter Crowley and Neill Hughes, were tipped last month to be in the frame to buy the Racing Post, which was put up for sale by Trinity Mirror in December 2006 along with 138 of the publisher's regional newspaper titles.

However, any successful bid would have to be approved by Shekih Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, owner of the title and joint-ruler of Dubai. He has licensed the Racing Post name to Trinity Mirror in perpetuity and therefore must approve the potential purchaser.

Trinity Mirror had initially valued the title at more than £200m, and was reported to have previously rejected a bid of £195m.

The final deadline for the sale of Trinity Mirror's regional titles, which include the Birmingham Evening Mail and Coventry Evening Telegraph, comes at the end of next week.

Archant, Daily Mail & General Trust, and Johnston Press are all believed to be interested in Trinity Mirror's South West and Midlands titles. Trinity Mirror collectively values these at around £400m, but the final sale price for each division could fetch less than £200m.