Racing Post purchased for $342M

Britain's leading racing daily, The Racing Post, has been sold to FL Partners, an Irish private equity investment firm, for approximately $342 million. The paper was sold by the Times Mirror Group, which had been behind a short-lived American racing paper, The Racing Times, in 1991.

The new owner has named Alan Byrne as the Racing Post's new chief executive and editor-in-chief. Byrne, who had been editor of the Post from 1993 to 2002, has been serving as a consultant to Sheikh Mohammed's Godolphin Racing.

Sheikh Mohammed had been the previous owner of the Racing Post until he sold the paper in 1998 to what was then the Trinity Mirror Group for one pound ($1.70). The deal was based on the condition that Trinity Mirror close its own racing paper at the time, The Sporting Life.

The acquisition also includes the Racing Post website and numerous weekly and annual racing publications.