Racing Post Close To £190m Sale

Trinity Mirror is close to agreeing a £190m deal for the sale of its Racing Post
title with Irish investment firm Festina Lente Group.

FL Partners is believed to have entered into exclusive negotiations with the
publishing group’s investment bankers NM Rothschild over the purchase of the
horse racing newspaper.

If confirmed, the Dublin-based FL Partners will have beaten off competition
from two rival bids for the newspaper – a joint bid from private equity firms
Veronis Suhler Stevenson and Equity, and one from the private equity division of
Goldman Sachs.
FL Partners is run by the former executives of IBI Corporate
Finance Peter Crowley and Neill Hughes.

The Racing Post was put up for sale by Trinity Mirror in December 2006 along
with 138 of the publisher’s regional newspaper titles, initially valuing the
title at more than £200m.

However, any successful bid would have to be approved by Shekih Mohammed bin
Rashid al-Maktoum, owner of the title and joint-ruler of Dubai who has licensed
the title to Trinity Mirror on a ten year lease and therefore must approve the
potential purchaser.