The Financial Times, the U.K.-based salmon-colored daily that Michael Bloomberg has coveted since at least 2012, is once again considering a sale, according to Bloomberg’s news organization.
Bloomberg Business reports that FT parent company Pearson Plc. is once again considering a sale of the company, which could be valued at £1 billion pounds, or $1.6 billion. It lists the potential buyers as Axel Springer, the German media conglomerate (and POLITICO Europe partner), as well as “investors in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.”
The potential buyer Bloomberg Business does not list is Bloomberg itself. Bloomberg (the man) has been privately floating the idea of a bid for years. (He’s also floated a bid for The New York Times, though that is less likely to go up for sale.) In October 2012, he visited the FT’s London headquarters. Asked then if he would like to buy the paper, Bloomberg replied, “I buy it every day.”
If Pearson does truly decide to put FT out for auction, the scuttlebutt is that it would go to the highest bidder, in which case the anonymous “investors in Europe, the Middle East and Asia” — read: China — might take a leading role.
Alternatively, Pearson holds on to the FT, and we can all look forward to reading about the paper considering a sale a year or two down the line.