French financial news site Boursorama (EPA:BRS) is acquiring a 77.4 percent stake in leading German online finance news publisher onVista (FRA:ONV) in a deal valued at EUR 138 million (£96.7 million) (see release). Burda Digital, Fritz Oidtmann, Stephan Schubert and Michael W. Schwetje are selling their stake at EUR 20.6 (£14.36) per share in cash. This should create a more powerful, pan-European online business news outfit. Boursorama was formed from the 2003 merger of a financial information portal of the same name with the Filmatex digital stock broker, which began trading via France’s Minitel system in 1995; it now combined brokerage with news. Boursorama Group still operates in Germany under Filmatex and in the UK and Spain under Selftrade.
Out of the deal, Boursorama plans to create a joint info-and-brokerage service on the French model but under the existing brand of onVista. The site will continue to be ad-supported. Thomson reported Boursorama wants to withdraw onVista from the stock market, adding the site gets 10.04 million unique monthly visitors according to Nielsen//NetRatings and made a EUR 1.9 million profit on EUR 11.3 million sales in H1 2007.