Daily Sport set for £60m takeover

by Maria Esposito, Brand Republic 26-Jun-07, 09:10

LONDON - The Daily Sport and Sunday Sport could be sold in a £60m deal which would see the newspapers listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market.

Interactive World, a mobile adult content group, is understood to be in advanced talks to buy both titles from David Sullivan, owner of Birmingham City football club, and brothers Ralph and David Gold, the family behind high street sex shop Ann Summers.

Sullivan and the Gold brothers launched the Sunday Sport in 1986 and have seen sales progressively fall from 600,000 to just below 100,000.

Sullivan is expected to retain some influence over the papers, as he holds a 49.95% stake in Interactive World.

The reverse takeover means that the Daily Sport and the Sunday Sport will be registered as part of Interactive World, which is publicly-listed on AIM.

Interactive already has a five-year deal with Sport Newspapers to distribute content, including photographs of celebrities in compromising positions, via mobile phones.

The papers are best known for pictures of semi-naked women and sensationalist headlines, such as "Adolf Hitler was a woman" and "Aliens turned my son into a fish finger".