The Financial Times is increasingly launching specialist spin-off sites targeted at niche audiences of financial professionals.
The latest is SchemeXpert.com, a news and analysis site covering the pensions sector. It means the FT now has…
— China Confidential: Far-East business intelligence
— China Confidential Funds: (launching this month)
— SchemeXpert: pension funds
— Money Media: global money management (acquisition)
— MandateWire: European pension funds (acquisition)
— Medley Global Advisors: investment banking (acquisition)
— FT Tilt (launching later this year)
FT parent Pearson (NYSE: PSO) also owns the Mergermarket M&A opportunities database and advisory house.
The moves are “designed to reduce the FT’s reliance on more cyclical advertising”, as a spokesperson put it to paidContent:UK.
FT Group had already done that to a significant degree, reducing advertising from 74 percent of revenue in 2000 to just 45 percent in 2009, as FT.com subs have increased.
SchemeXpert.com broadly mirrors FT.com’s consumer access model, with one free article a month for non-registered visitors, five free for free-registered users and full access to subscribers. As is par for the course with this type of site, no subscription price is listed on the site.