Financial Times owners Pearson are reportedly looking to sell the newspaper in a deal which could net the FTSE 100 media group a £1bn-£2bn payday.
Pearson is said to be mulling a sale of the financial daily, which has suffered from falling readership, within months so that it can focus its efforts on a fast-growing education division.
The move comes ahead of the retirement of Dame Marjorie Scardino, Pearson’s chief executive, who once stated that the FT would be sold: “over my dead body”.
Scardino’s volte face comes just days after Pearson agreed to merge its Penguin book publishing division with Bertelsmann’s Random House which created the world’s largest book publisher.
The de-diversification strategy is expected to draw interest from a wide variety of publishers with Bloomberg Media Group (which revealed the purported sale), Thomson Reuters and News Corporation all named as likely bidders.
Interest could also emanate from the Middle East and Russia from wealthy individuals keen to acquire a ‘trophy asset’.
The Financial Times is currently part of the FT Group, which also publishes the Economist, and accounts for 12% of Pearson’s profits.
In a statement a Pearson spokesman said: “We have said many times that the FT is a valued and valuable part of Pearson... this particular Bloomberg story is wrong.”