Journalists at Les Echos, the FT’s French sister paper, have on their own initiative secured a €245m bid from Fimalac, the Paris-listed owner of the Fitch credit rating agency. The FT Group, the Pearson subsidiary that owns Les Echos and the FT, last month entered exclusive negotiations to sell the French title to LVMH, the luxury goods group controlled by Bernard Arnault. Les Echos journalists protested that their reputation for editorial independence would suffer under LVMH, which was willing to pay €240m for the paper – 24 times Les Echos’ 2006 operating profit.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 5:11 and is filed under Capital markets, M&A, People. Tagged with bernard arnault, fitch, les echos, lvmh. Edit this entry.