Thomson Reuters to buy breakingviews.com for £10m - report

The seller is Hugo Dixon, a former Financial Times journalist who is backed by more than 40 shareholders including The Wall Street Journal.

“Dixon, who ran the Financial Times's Lex column for five years, has been in talks with Thomson Reuters since July,” The Sunday Times said. “The £10m price tag was agreed in recent days, according to sources inside Thomson Reuters, which has been seeking to expand the commentary and analysis available on its global news network for more than a year.

“The media company has recruited a number of commentators, including Jonathan Ford, who co-founded Breakingviews with Dixon in 1999. Ford no longer has any shares in the business, having left in 2007.”

The Sunday Times said the Breakingviews operation is likely to be left as a separate entity, with its own branding. It has about 15,000 direct subscribers. Columns in a string of newspapers including The New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais and Handelsblatt, have increased its readership to an estimated 4.5 million. "It is profitable in Europe but continues to invest heavily in America and Asia.” ■