But this is no American get-rich-quick scheme of the sort that the paper’s journalists deplore as capitalisme sauvage. Explains editor-in-chief Jean-Marie Colombani, who has edited Le Monde since 1994, “To remain isolated would leave the newspaper at the mercy of economic ill fortune and the temptation of large groups.”
Still, doesn,t so blatant an act of capitalism pose a certain philosophical quandary for the paper,s reporters and editors? “In principle, we see no ideological obstacle” to a listing, as long as “all the locks” guaranteeing financial and editorial independence are in place and reinforced, says Michel Noblecourt, president of the Société des Rédacteurs du Monde, an association of the newspaper’s journalists, which owns 29.9 percent of the paper. Adds Colombani, “We are thinking of a judicial structure that will provide the newspaper sanctuary and preserve current mechanisms of control.”
Le Monde has sound business reasons for doing an IPO. The publishing group has acquired magazines and a string of regional newspapers and would like to buy several French trade publications.
Meanwhile, the company’s investment bankers, BNP-Paribas and Rothschild, may have a tougher time explaining the IPO to investors than to the paper’s 320 journalists. Le Monde had earnings last year of Ff2.2 billion ($307 million), but those were the paper,s first profits since it was founded in 1944.
