Les Echos journalists caution Pearson over LVMH
PARIS, June 18 (Reuters) - A sale of Les Echos to luxury group LVMH (LVMH.PA) would be "dangerous" for the editorial independence of the French business paper, its journalists told their British owner, the media group Pearson (PSON.L).
"A possible sale of the group Les Echos to Bernard Arnault, head of LVMH and owner of our main rival La Tribune, appears dangerous to us," the journalists said in a letter to Pearson chief executive Majorie Scardino which was published in the paper on Monday.
They said they had decided to write to Pearson as speculation about the sale of the paper had become ever more recurring and detailed. One report on Friday said Arnault had shown interest in buying Les Echos.
Pearson, owner of the Financial Times and Penguin publishing house, and LVMH were not immediately available for comment.
Over the past two years, several private equity firms have been reported by media to be circling Les Echos.
"We find it incomprehensible and shocking that our parent should choose to sell us to an industrial group on which we write every day. We fear major and regular conflicts of interests," the journalists said in their letter.
"Several French industrial groups, owners of newspapers, have shown how little they cared about editorial independence, whether in the economic or political sphere," they added.
Speculation about a sale of the French paper comes amid media reports on Monday that Pearson and General Electric (GE.N) are mounting a joint counter-bid for Dow Jones DJ.N.
Dow Jones, owner of the news agency and the Wall Street Journal, is currently considering a $5 billion bid from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp NWSa.N.
The media industry is caught in a wave of consolidation and alliance-making last seen in 2000 as players seek to address the impact of changing consumer habits and new Internet applications and technologies on their business models.
Canadian group Thomson Corp. TOC.TO last month agreed to buy Reuters RTR.L for about 8.7 bilion pounds but the deal is still subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.
((Reporting by Astrid Wendlandt, editing by Paul Bolding; Paris Equities, astrid.wendlandt@reuters.com, +33 1 49 49 54 40)) Keywords: PEARSON LESECHOS/LVMH
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