By Sarah Sloat
FRANKFURT--Financial Times Deutschland, Germany's
seventh-largest national newspaper by circulation, will cease
publication as of Dec. 7, publishing house Gruner + Jahr said
Friday.
FTD, a financial daily, hasn't made a profit since its founding
in 2000, G+J said. The newspaper, in both its print and online
forms, will be shut down after it failed to find a buyer.
"Daily newspapers are under pressure, especially in the
financial sector," G+J board member Julia Jaekel said. "We see no
way to continue operations."
The publisher had discussed continuing FTD's online edition but
also decided against it, and more than 300 people are expected to
lose their jobs, G+J said.
Hamburg-based G+J, which is majority-owned by media company
Bertelsmann AG, also publishes lifestyle, sports and women's
magazines.
Talks on the possible sale or a management buyout of two of
G+J's other business publications, Boerse Online and Impulse, are
taking place, G+J said. Should they fail, publication of those two
titles will also cease. Capital, another G+J business and finance
magazine, will continue to operate out of Berlin.
FTD was founded in 2000 as a joint venture, in which G+J and
Pearson PLC (PSON.LN), publisher of Financial Times, each owned
50%. Pearson sold its stake to G+J in 2008. In the same year, G+J
set up an editorial pool for its finance and business publications.
This brought considerable savings, G+J said, but not enough to
compensate for declining advertising revenue. The company's finance
segment publications will book a significant loss this year, G+J
said.
Germany has a strong local and regional newspaper market. At
just over 100,000 copies, FTD was the seventh-largest national
paper in 2011, according to media data tracker IVW.
This month, local daily Frankfurter Rundschau filed for
insolvency as a continuing decline in advertising revenue gave the
publisher little hope of returning to profit. An insolvency
administrator is looking for possible ways to continue
operations.
--Markus Klausen contributed to this story
Write to Sarah Sloat at sarah.sloat@dowjones.com
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