New York — The Financial Times (FT) is in talks to buy companies that strengthen its digital subscription business as the newspaper capitalises on greater financial support from its new owner, Japan’s Nikkei, FT CEO John Ridding said. The publisher is hunting for companies that can "support and accelerate our growth in quality content and, in particular, are based on digital subscriptions," Ridding said in an interview in New York. The company was also interested in technology firms that bolstered its data analytics — valuable for targeting readers with advertising and subscriber offers, he said. "We have a number of opportunities in the acquisition zone on the radar," Ridding said. The newspaper declined to comment on which companies it was talking with. "There are some irons in the fire." Nikkei bought the London-based Financial Times a year ago for $1.3bn after a bidding war with Germany’s Axel Springer SE. Prior to thatBefore that, the financial newspaper was owned for 58 years ...
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