Spiegel to buy Pearson's stake in FT Deutschland

by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 11-Sep-07, 11:00

LONDON - Germany's Spiegel magazine group is in talks to buy UK publisher Pearson's 50% stake in the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper.

The deal to buy Pearson's stake in the German financial daily will be sealed in the coming weeks, according to the German business media.

Publisher Gruner & Jahr, which is owned by media group Bertelsmann, controls the other 50% of the FT Deutschland.

A sale of the Pearson stake to Spiegel would indirectly increase Gruner & Jahr's stake because it also owns 25.5% of Spiegel.

Pearson's interim results at the end of July showed that FT Deutschland, which was launched in 2000, had a circulation increase of 2% to 105,000 copies.

Pearson, which owns the Financial Times, a 50% stake in the Economist magazine, and a majority stake in data provider Interactive Data Corp, is aleady in talks to sell its French business daily Les Echos to luxury goods group LVMH.