Nikkei will make a £90m contribution to the Pearson pension fund following its £844m purchase of the Financial Times.
Pearson said Nikkei would make the £90m contribution to the Pearson Group Pension Plan on completion of the deal, adding the company had committed to funding the scheme to self-sufficiency in the near term.
The publisher, which makes most of its revenues from educational publishing, said the balance of the proceeds will be used by the company for general corporate purposes and investment in its global education strategy. The company said that in 2014, FT Group contributed £334m of sales and £24m of adjusted operating income to Pearson.
The deal includes the FT newspaper, FT.com, and titles such as The Banker and Investors Chronicle, but excludes the FT Group’s London property at One Southwark Bridge and Pearson’s 50% share of The Economist Group, which publishes The Economist magazine.
Pearson chief executive John Fallon said: “Pearson has been a proud proprietor of the FT for nearly 60 years. But we’ve reached an inflection point in media, driven by the explosive growth of mobile and social. In this new environment, the best way to ensure the FT’s journalistic and commercial success is for it to be part of a global, digital news company.”
Nikkei is one of Japan’s largest publishers with annual sales of about £1bn. Chairman and group chief executive Tsuneo Kita said: “Our motto of providing high-quality reporting on economic and other news, while maintaining fairness and impartiality, is very close to that of the FT. We share the same journalistic values. Together, we will strive to contribute to the development of the global economy.”
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