Ignites readers got their last shareholder's letter from Mike Griffin this week. He has sold his Money-Media company, which publishes Ignites, to Pearson PLC publisher of the Financial Times, for an undisclosed sum.

Griffin is a former senior executive at Scudder, Stevens and Clark (now absorbed into Deutsche bank). Money-Media is the second fund publication that Griffin has created and sold off, the first being Fund World which Griffin sold to Euromoney back in mid-1990's. After that sale Griffin started Tower Media which eventually became Money-Media.

The business will now be managed by director Andrew Sollinger, who will report into FT financial publishing director Mark Cunnington.

The deal, according to a number of current and former Money-Media employees, has been in the works for at least four months now.

A source within publishing circles told MFWire that money media's banker was Scott Peters at Jordan Edmiston. The bankers and Griffin have a tie in Peter Durow who was CEO of II, which bought Griffin's Fund World in 1995. Durow now serves on the advisory boards of both Money Media and Jordan Edmiston.

One source speculates that the deal could have been for as much as four times the $16.8 million revenue.

Ignites, which is Money-Media's Web-based publication covering mutual funds, has been most well known for aggregating new from other sources, though the sale may open the door for more original reporting with access to Pearson's resources.

This year many of Ignites senior reporters including, Christine Ong, Tom Leswing, Bonnie Baumann and Lisa Lacy have left the publication.

A spokesperson for Pearson was not immediately available for comment.

"This acquisition supports and extends our strategy of building strong subscriber and digital businesses in core sectors," said John Ridding, chief executive of the FT, in a news release.

Aside from Ignites, Money-Media is behind titles such as FundFire, which targets the separately managed account industry; BoardIQ, aimed at mutual fund trustees and Agenda, which targets corporate directors. Another Money-Media property is ODX, which puts together conferences for directors. 

Correction: A prior version of this story mislabeled a revenue figure as something else.

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