BBC Worldwide has signalled its ambition to compete with the world's largest media companies with the acquisition of Lonely Planet, one of the world's best-known publishers of travel guides.
The commercial arm of the British broadcaster yesterday announced that it had bought a controlling stake for an undisclosed price, thought to be in the region of £100 million (€143.6 million).
"It is further evidence of BBC Worldwide's ability to become a major international media player," said Etienne de Villiers, BBC Worldwide chairman.
The deal, which BBC Worldwide described as the largest in its history, will be funded from its £350 million borrowing facility.
Together with £60 million in annual cashflows, this has given it scope for more than £400 million worth of acquisitions.
"This deal fits well with our strategy to create one of the world's leading content businesses, to grow our portfolio of content brands online and to increase our operations in Australia and America," said BBC Worldwide chief executive John Smith.
Mr Smith's promise of doubling operating profits to £222 million within five years, all of which must be returned to the BBC, has become more important to the corporation after it received a below-inflation licence fee settlement at the start of the year.
The acquisition forms part of Mr Smith's push to expand the division's ambitions beyond its one-time remit of finding commercial outlets for BBC content funded by the licence fee, in the form of magazines such as the Radio Times and DVDs of The Office.
Lonely Planet founders Maureen and Tony Wheeler will keep a 25 per cent stake.
The couple, who met on a bench in London's Regent's Park, started the publisher in 1972 after a honeymoon trip across Asia with "a beat-up old car, a few dollars in the pocket and a sense of adventure", Lonely Planet's website says.
More than 30 years after publishing Across Asia on the Cheap, the couple have made about £70 million on the sale, since they owned about 90 per cent of the business. - ( Financial Times service/Reuters)
