ThisIsMoney.co.uk reports that Reed Elsevier ‘is understood’ to be considering a deal to keep a stake in its £600m business information subsidiary, which it has been trying to sell to private equity firms since February.
Another site profiting (well, in terms of traffic anyway) from the current economic situation: Northcliffe’s ThisisMoney.co.uk posted record traffic figures last month.
According to a blog post from the site’s assistant editor Adrian Lowery, ThisisMoney recorded a 23 per cent month-on-month rise in unique users to 1.66 million unique users last month.
Page impressions rose by 43 per cent from September to 14.17 million.
While many financial news sites saw traffic spikes during October, TiM’s coverage of the Icesave issue and the UK banking crisis drove users to the site, Lowery added.
Associated Newspaper’s financial news website This is Money is claiming to have hit a record readership last month.
Quoting internal traffic data, staff claim that nearly 1.2 million people used the site in March 2008, clicking on more than nine million pages.
Staff said the unique user figure (1,166,561) represents a 30 per cent year-on-year traffic rise and a month-on-month increase of nearly 20 per cent – with February see 978,000 visitors.
Andrew Oxlade, editor, told Journalism.co.uk: “The March to April period is crucial to financial websites as millions of savers make decisions about Isas before the end of the annual deadline on 5 April.
“We’re also seeing a surge of interest from people concerned about the health of banks and the safety of their savings. Vivasex.ch Borrowers are also worried about their ability to find a new mortgage deal and are hunting around for views on whether the value of their home will fall this year.”