【英语财经】《金融时报》为何能在互联网时代高价易手？ The pink paper that grew more valuable in the digital maelstrom

In the end, it came down to money. After Pearson had chosen the news organisations it believed could become responsible owners of the Financial Times, and quizzed them about their respect for editorial integrity, the outcome turned on whether Axel Springer of Germany or Nikkei of Japan would pay more. It turned out, in a last-minute drama on Thursday afternoon, to be Nikkei.

Amid shock that Pearson’s 58-year ownership of the FT is coming to an end, and pointed questions about how Nikkei will treat its new asset, the ￡844m price tag drew some gasps.

The news business has been in disarray for a decade, with older brands falling and digital ones rising. Yet the price fetched by the FT, which was founded in 1888, was as racy as an internet start-up.

This says a lot not only about the FT itself but also the maelstrom around it in the news publishing world. The value of an English-language, business-focused, high-quality, still-expanding publication that attracts professional readers has steadily increased. Magazines may crumble, metropolitan papers may tumble, but global business news and comment is here to stay.

The FT last changed hands in 1957, when Pearson, then owned by the Cowdray family, paid ￡720,000 for a controlling stake in a deal valuing the City of London paper at the inflation-adjusted equivalent of ￡60m.

The FT was smaller then, and the internet was decades away from being invented, but it was growing — its 84,000 circulation had risen 40 per cent in eight years.

Nikkei this week paid 14 times that price for an FT that has 737,000 print and digital subscribers, yet makes only about twice 1957’s inflation-adjusted profits. As Ken Doctor, the US analyst, wrote: “That multiple puts the FT in a class by itself — as perhaps it should be.” It is five times what Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, paid for the Washington Post in 2013, and one-and-a-half times BuzzFeed’s valuation last year.

It seems odd to compare the Financial Times to BuzzFeed, the innovative US news and entertainment site valued by venture capitalists as much for its traffic growth and profit potential as for its current revenues. Yet the FT and BuzzFeed share some coveted qualities in today’s news business — they are global, they have room to grow and English is their first language.

It is notable that, despite speculation that the FT could be acquired by Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters, the world’s biggest financial information groups, the final bidders left in the auction were foreign language publishers. Both saw in the FT a flagship for global expansion, escaping the circulation limits imposed on them by their mother tongues to what has become the language of global business.

The FT also has trophy value. Like a house for sale on the smartest street in a city, they do not come up for purchase often. The two papers with comparable reach among global professionals are The Wall Street Journal, bought for $5bn by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in 2007, and The New York Times, still controlled by the Sulzberger family.

The price amounts to a belated vindication of the strategy pioneered by Gordon Newton, the FT’s editor between 1950 and 1972, of breaking out of the FT’s original niche of being a bible for brokers and bankers in the City of London. Sir Gordon expanded briskly into industrial, political and arts coverage. Under him and later editors, the FT then broadened its focus from the UK to Europe, the US and Asia.

This was partly foresight, and partly being in the right place. The postwar City was a hub for British companies to raise funds, but lacked the global reach of its 19th-century heyday, when banks such as Barings and Rothschild (which advised Nikkei on its FT purchase) financed the world. As the City deregulated, and finance and industry globalised from the 1980s onwards, the FT was carried along with it.

Its global expansion, derided in the past by Fleet Street rivals, is now being followed in the digital world. The Guardian, which moved headquarters from Manchester to London in the 1960s, has expanded to the US and Australia. Having decided not to charge online for its general news and analysis, it finds the UK’s 64m population too small to support it financially.

The problem for such publishers, which rely heavily on advertising, is that yields have fallen as news outlets, social media brands and entertainment sites compete for the same marketing budgets. Business publications also need to grow online, but the FT and others have the crucial advantage that many readers will subscribe to gain access to valuable financial information.

It could all go wrong, of course. If the FT falters, or its digital transition does not bring in enough revenue, history may judge that Pearson sold at the right moment. Business news is attracting competition from companies with deep pockets, technology expertise and huge ambition. Bloomberg has built a 2,300 -journalist news operation on the back of its data business in 25 years.

But the price paid by Nikkei has one lesson — those who conceived and produced the FT’s growth in six decades within Pearson got some important things right. The FT now needs to prove itself again within Nikkei.

最终，问题还是归结到了钱上。

在培生集团(Pearson)选定了它认为会成为英国《金融时报》负责任东家的各收购方、并考察过它们对编辑诚信的尊重之后，最后就剩下德国斯普林格集团(Axel Springer)和日本经济新闻社(Nikkei)两家中哪一家会支付更高价钱了。上周四下午，在最后一刻的戏剧化情节中，日经新闻胜出。

除了培生集团结束对英国《金融时报》58年的所有权这一令人震惊的消息，加上有关日经新闻会如何对待新资产的尖锐问题之外，8.44亿英镑的价码也令有的人大吃一惊。

10年来，新闻业务一直处于洗牌状态，旧的品牌不断衰落，新的数字化品牌不断崛起。然而，1888年成立的英国《金融时报》卖出的价钱，却堪比互联网初创企业。

这个价码不仅很说明英国《金融时报》自身的质素，还反映了新闻出版界的风云变幻。一家关注商务、吸引专业读者、仍在扩张的高品质英文出版物，价值稳步增长。杂志可能会走向末路，聚焦大城市的报纸也可能衰落，然而全球商务新闻和评论将永远是香饽饽。

英国《金融时报》上次易主是在1957年，当时由考德雷(Cowdray)家族持有的培生集团，斥资72万英镑买下了这家伦敦金融城(City of London)报纸的控股权。经通胀调整后，该交易对英国《金融时报》的估值为6000万英镑。

那时候，英国《金融时报》规模较小，互联网也还是几十年后的发明。但该报在增长，其8.4万份的发行量是之前8年增长40%的结果。

上周日经新闻支付了上述价格的14倍，收购了拥有73.7万印刷和数字订户、然而经通胀调整后盈利仅大约两倍于1957年水平的英国《金融时报》。美国分析师肯?多克托(Ken Doctor)写道：“这一收购价/利润倍数令英国《金融时报》与众不同——也许它应该这样。”该价格是亚马逊(Amazon)创始人杰夫?贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos) 2013年对《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)收购价的五倍，是去年BuzzFeed估值的1.5倍。

将英国《金融时报》与BuzzFeed相比较似乎很奇怪。在风险资本家对BuzzFeed这一创新型美国新闻娱乐网站的估值过程中，其流量增长和盈利潜力是与当前营收同等重要的考量因素。不过，在当今的新闻业，两者拥有某些共同的诱人品质：全球化，增长空间，英语是主要语言。

值得注意的是，虽然曾有人猜测英国《金融时报》或许会被全球最大的两家金融信息集团彭博(Bloomberg)或汤森路透(Thomson Reuters)收购，但最后两家竞购者却都是非英语出版商。它们都把英国《金融时报》视为向全球扩张的旗舰，突破母语强加给它们的发行量限制，采用已成为全球商务语言的英语。

此外，收购英国《金融时报》还有一种炫耀性的价值。正如一座城市中最抢手地段的待售房屋，它们不会经常挂牌出售。在全球职场人士中，影响力与该报相当的两份报纸分别是《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)和《纽约时报》(New York Times)。前者于2007年由鲁珀特?默多克(Rupert Murdoch)的新闻集团(News Corp)以50亿美元收购，后者仍由苏兹贝格家族(Sulzberger)控股。

英国《金融时报》的这一转手价格，迟到地证明了从1950年至1972年担任主编的戈登?牛顿(Gordon Newton)开创的战略的正确性，即打破英国《金融时报》最初的小众定位——伦敦金融城经纪人和银行家的圣经。戈登爵士积极地向行业报道、政治报道和艺术类报道拓展。在他和后来多位主编领导下，英国《金融时报》接着还将其关注的焦点从英国拓展至欧洲、美国和亚洲。

这在一定程度上要归功于他们的先见之明，但也有一部分是时势的产物。战后的伦敦金融城是英国企业募资的中心，但缺乏其在19世纪鼎盛时期的全球触角范围——当年的巴林银行(Barings)和罗斯柴尔德银行（Rothschild，该行在日经收购英国《金融时报》的过程中向日经提供咨询）曾向全世界提供融资。从上世纪80年代开始，伦敦金融城走上了放松监管的道路，金融业和工业逐渐全球化。英国《金融时报》借着这股潮流扩张。

这一扩张曾遭到伦敦报业竞争对手的嘲笑，但在当今数字化的世界成了效仿对象。上世纪60年代将总部从曼彻斯特迁至伦敦的《卫报》(The Guardian)，已扩张至美国和澳大利亚。由于《卫报》决定不对网上的综合新闻和分析内容收费，英国的6400万人口太少，不足以在财务上支撑该报经营。

对于此类严重依赖广告的出版商，问题在于广告收入已经降低，原因是新闻媒体、社交媒体品牌和娱乐网站都在争夺同一块营销预算蛋糕。商业出版物同样需要在线增长，而英国《金融时报》及其他类似媒体的一个关键优势在于，许多读者愿意订阅有价值的财经信息。

当然，这种策略也可能失手。一旦英国《金融时报》发展遇阻，或其向数字化媒体的转型不能带来足够营收，历史或许会评判培生集团在最有利的时机出售了该报。如今，商业新闻正在吸引财力雄厚、具备技术专长及巨大雄心的企业的竞争。彭博(Bloomberg)以25年的数据业务为依托，打造了一个拥有2300位记者的新闻业务部门。

但日经新闻开出的价码让人们知道了一件事：英国《金融时报》在培生集团旗下的近60年里，那些构想并实现了该报发展壮大的人们，正确把握了某些重要的事情。如今，英国《金融时报》需要在日经新闻旗下再次证明自己。

译者/简易