Stephen Hill
The Financial Times Group is cutting more than 40 internet jobs, among them 12 journalists’ posts at FT Your Money.
The site is to be integrated with the newspaper with a new eight-strong staff to serve both disciplines. The 12 will have to vie for four places on the new team.
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FT.com journalists have been told there will be no editorial job losses but remain concerned.
Stephen Hill, chief executive of FT Group, announced the redundancies last week when he told staff he expected FT.com to break even by the end of next year but in making it profitable, cutbacks would need to be made.
"FT. com now attracts some two million unique monthly users, up over 50 per cent on this time last year," he said.
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"But we don’t just want to be the biggest online international business portal; we want to be one of the most profitable too."
He explained that last year, FT.com revenues had increased three-fold to £18m but next year he expected only half of online revenues to be from advertising as other services kicked in.
Hill also said: "Since last year we have been carefully integrating our internet editorial and advertisement sales operations with those of the newspaper.
"And we have seen how we have become more efficient by doing so."
The group had tried very hard to keep the number of redundancies to a minimum, Hill added.
Nic Ciciutti, head of content at FT Your Money, said the site would benefit from the "excellent and award-winning personal financial journalism at the FT."
He added: "The future looks bright with a non-stop rise in traffic on our site over the last few months."
Hill has said the company will do all it can to help those made redundant to find new roles in the company.
Joanna Manning-Cooper, group head of marketing communications, said: "FT Your Money was a stand-alone operation and this move will see the team integrated into the personal finance team at Southwark Bridge."
The majority of the 40-plus redundancies would come from technology, production and development departments, she confirmed.
lThe FT’s transatlantic financial services team, led by US banking editor Gary Silverman, has won a Best in Business award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for a world exclusive last July on UBS’s $12bn (£8.3bn) purchase of PaineWebber.
The judges said that the FT’s piece provided "important perspective about the reasons for the deal".
Also in Silverman’s team are William Lewis, Adrian Michaels and Charles Pretzlik.
Silverman was appointed US banking editor in November 1999.
Previously, he was the money and banking editor of Business Week.
By Paul Donovan and Jean Morgan
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