The talks between The Daily Beast and Newsweek about a possible merger ended on Monday after both companies were not able to agree on how power should be shared, The Wall Street Journal revealed.

"The engagement was fun but the pre-nup got too complex. We wish Newsweek all the best," said The Daily Beast editor-in-chief Tina Brown in a memo sent to the website staff, New York Magazine quoted.

The Daily Beast editor-in-chief Tina Brown was one of the candidates to fill Newsweek's editor position. Photo: AdPulp
According to The Wall Street Journal, if the deal had gone through Brown would have become the editor of the magazine. However, Newsweek's owner Sidney Harman, IAC/InterActive Corp CEO Barry Diller, who owns The Daily Beast, and Brown could not agree on their specific roles and how to divide business and editorial responsibilities.

In a joint memo, Harman and Newsweek's CEO Tom Ascheim said that they remain "committed to and actively engaged in the search for the best editor for Newsweek," The New York Observer quoted. In August, The Washington Post Company sold the magazine to Harman for $1. Since then, Newsweek has not had a permanent editor.

Indian newspaper publisher Jagran Prakashan Ltd. will merge with English-language publication Mid-Day Multimedia Ltd., the Hindustan Times reported yesterday.

The Mid-Day board yesterday agreed to the "cashless deal," in which each Mid-Day shareholder will receive two shares of Jagran for seven shares of Mid-Day, according to the Wall Street Journal. The share price of Mid-Day rose 18 percent on the news, while Jagran's share price went down by 3.2 percent, the Times noted.

The publisher's dip in share price was due to the equity dilution of 5 percent that the deal caused, the WSJ reported.

Jagran publishes India's most read newspaper, Hindi-language daily Dainik Jagran. The deal will give Jagran, which publishes mostly in northern India, a foothold in the Mumbai market, as well as add to ad revenue and earnings, according to the WSJ. For its part, Mid-Day will benefit from Jagran's resources and larger scale, according to Reuters India.

The merger comes as readership for Hindi dailies outpaces English-language readership.

German publisher Axel Springer has acquired the Russian arm of Gruner+Jahr, another German publisher. The Russian titles will continue to operate under the G+J banner, with licensing of the respective names to Axel Springer. The acquisition - the value of which was not disclosed - must be approved by antitrust authorities before it can be finalised.

Axel currently publishes the Russian print editions and Web sites of Forbes, Newsweek, OK and Computer Bild. The merger adds to its list of titles: GEO, GALA Biografia, GEO Traveller, and GEOLenok print magazines as well as GEO.ru, Moi-Roditeli.ru, and MoiZvezdi.ru Web sites.

British book wholesaler Bertram Group reported £53.5m and pre-tax profits of £500,000 in its second full quarter since it was bought by Britain's biggest newspaper and magazine wholesaler, Smiths News, for £8.6m last April, the Eastern Daily Press reported today.

Michael Neil, managing director of Bertrams - which supplies books to major retailers, schools, universities and libraries - was quoted as saying: "We expected and budgeted to break-even for the rump of the financial year . . . . but things came into place much faster than we'd expected."

Despite the health of the Bertram division, its newspaper parent felt the impact of the acquisition, Trading Markets reported yesterday. Smiths' underlying profit fell 6 percent to GBP30.5 million on revenues 7 percent higher at GBP1.33 billion in the year to August.

Its dividend is up from 6.7p to 6.8p a share. Bertrams' turnaround was especially challenging because it was a bankruptcy holding when purchased, the Financial Times reported yesterday. Mark Cashmore, Smiths News chief executive, was quoted as saying: "The challenges it faced were purely on the back of the Woolworths financial situation and the lack of working capital."