Scotsman Sold

The Scotsman publishing group has been sold to local newspaper publisher Johnston Press for £160 million.

I work in the media so indulge me in this post. This looks like a very canny piece of business for the Barclay brothers who in eight years have managed to double their £87 million investment - despite the newspaper business having it's heart ripped out by the Internet. I can't really see what's in it for Johnston Press - they have a pretty big internet play but while I can see that local services have an exciting future I'm afraid that most of their sites suffer from the "shit in, shit out" syndrome. Johnston (founded in Falkirk) have offices in Edinburgh so presumably there's money to had in sticking everyone in the same location and selling property.

The Scotsman.com is an incredible piece of online real-estate - very nice technology, sound business plan - well worth it's 3 million uniques. I hope they don't fuck it up.