German publishing titan to buy Politico

Politico, the Washington news site that has prospered for years as Beltway professionals gobbled up its scoops and inside-baseball style reporting, will have a new owner.

German publishing giant Axel Springer agreed to buy Politico in a deal announced Thursday.

Springer will take control of Politico and its sister site, Politico Europe, as well as Politico’s tech news site, Protocol, a relatively new venture, the companies said. The deal, expected to close by the end of the year, is valued at more than $1 billion, two people familiar with the matter said. The New York Times reported last week that Politico’s owner, Robert Allbritton, was seeking $1 billion for the deal. The companies did not disclose financial terms.

Allbritton, who helped found Politico in 2007, will remain publisher of the site. It will operate separately from Springer.

Allbritton and Springer had been in talks for several months over a possible acquisition, said sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private. Politico, which generates about $200 million a year in revenue, has been consistently profitable.

The site is free, and its flagship newsletter, Playbook, is widely read among Washington’s power brokers. It also has a high-end subscription service, Politico Pro, that generates more than half of the company’s annual revenue.

With a value of more than $1 billion, the deal is one of the most expensive media mergers in recent memory, the equivalent of five times Politico’s yearly sales.