Spiegel magazine group will likely buy British publisher Pearson's 50 percent stake in the daily Financial Times Deutschland, according to a Handelsblatt newspaper report.

The deal is expected to be complete in the coming weeks, the article states, citing sources at Germany's Spiegel and publisher Gruner + Jahr, which owns the other half of the FTD.

A spokesman for Pearson in London declined to comment, Reuters reported, while neither Spiegel nor Gruner + Jahr, controlled by Europe's largest media group Bertelsmann, were available to comment.

According to Reuters, Pearson's Financial Times Group made up 16 percent of Pearson's sales and 21 percent of operating profit in 2006. At the end of July, Pearson's interim results showed FTD's circulation rose 2 percent, to 105,000.

Pearson is also currently in talks to sell its French business daily Les Echos to the world's largest luxury good maker, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH).