Japan's Nikkei has agreed to buy the FT Group, publisher of the Financial Times newspaper, from Britain's Pearson for £844 million (€1,195bn) in cash, the two companies said on Thursday.

The deal does not include the FT Group’s 50 per cent stake in The Economist magazine.

Pearson said the FT Group contributed £334 million of sales and £24 million of adjusted operating income in 2014.

Nikkei describes itself as the largest independent business media group in Asia.

Earlier in the day, the Financial Times reported that Germany’s biggest newspaper group Alex Springer was in advanced talks to acquire the group.

Pearson said it has decided to sell the Financial Times to a “global, digital news company” after owning the business newspaper for nearly 60 years.

Analysts and investors had long expected the 171-year-old Pearson to sell the FT at some point, after it changed strategy to focus on education.

Recent media reports had suggested a number of potential buyers for the group, include Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters.

Shares in Pearson were up by more than 2 per cent in trading on Thursday. The group is due to report results on Friday.

While media groups around the world have been buffeted by the move to online publishing and the collapse of advertising markets during the financial downturn, the FT has benefited from a loyal customer base that is willing to pay for access to the newspaper and website.

Pearson, which in recent years has disposed of other assets and put its Penguin book publisher into a joint venture with Random House, believes that despite the relative stability of the paper, the time is right for it to focus solely on education, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Previous reports from other news organisations suggested the title could fetch around £1 billion, however analysts believed that was optimistic.

Reuters