Daily Mail buys Loot

Loot, the classified advertising magazine, has been bought by the Daily Mail and General Trust.

It was sold by the cash-strapped online directories company, Scoot.com, for £45m.

The deal could be a life saver for Scoot, which recently disclosed it only had enough cash left to survive until August 27.

Under the terms of the deal, DMGT, publisher of the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard and Metro, will also provide Scoot with a bridging loan of £10.5m.

Loot is one of the UK's leading free classified advertising publishers. Its free-ads paper is published in 20 editions a week across the UK and has a weekly circulation of about 180,000 copies.

"The company's recent strategic review has sought to identify the most effective route to maximise shareholder value," said Scoot.

"Of the options explored in this review, the sale of the Loot business combined with a bridge financing facility has been selected."

Some of the facility will be used to repay bank loans, while the remainder - about £7m - will be used as working capital.

A Scoot spokesman said the facility meant the company would be able to survive until October, when the deal is scheduled to complete.

Once the deal went through, he added, the group would be able to survive "well into next year".

Earlier this year, Scoot, which is based in Uxbridge, west London, announced it was trimming its 1,400-strong workforce by 285.

Another 800 will now leave the group as a result of the Loot sale.

DMGT - through its subsidiary, DMG Niche Publications - is buying both the UK and Irish divisions of Loot.

Scoot said it was talking to DMGT about "an ongoing commercial relationship between Scoot and the Loot business".

Scoot's share price plunged from a high of 351.5p at the height of the tech boom last year, to lows this year of 1.25p.

Today its shares jumped 35% in early trading to 2.75p.

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