Monday, November 02, 2009

Now ITV's Friends sale could be scuppered

ITV's plans to sell Friends Reunited has hit more problems.

The company was planning to sell to Brightsolid, a division of DC Thomson & Co, for around £25m.It planned to combine Friends reunited's family history site, Genes Reunited, with its own genealogy properties, 1911census.co.uk and FindMyPast.com.

Unfortunately the regulator has stepped in and the FT reports that

after investigating the UK genealogy market, the Office of Fair Trading decided that the “current competition in this market or the potential for future entry is sufficiently strong to prevent the merged firm from reducing the quality or range of its services, or possibly raising prices”.


ITV bought Friends Reunited for £170m back in its heyday of 2005.

No comments: