Axel Springer snaps up Business Insider

German media company Axel Springer SE have purchased 88% of Business Insider’s shares for 3 million.

The deal values Business Insider at $390 million at a cash and debt-free basis, or at 6 times next year’s expected revenue.

That puts Axel Springer among the world’s six largest digital publishers “in terms of reach”.

The site was founded by Henry Blodget, a former stock analyst who received a lifetime ban from the securities industry after emails emerged that conflicted with his publicly stated positions on certain tech companies. A German edition will launch later this year.

Axel Springer was thought to be interested in acquiring the Financial Times Group from education publisher Pearson. The pending acquisition was first reported last week.

Axel Springer invites the media to an worldwide conference call at 09:00 am ET / 3:00 pm CET.

That’s essentially Axel Springer’s play in buying Business Insider and NBCUniversal’s in investing in BuzzFeed and Vox – to join the digital party and draw a younger demographic that can help boost their brands and bottom lines. Perhaps Business Insider’s sale will prompt a few of these other talks to resume.

For context, BI was valued at around $100 million in March of 2013. While circulation revenue from print fell, overall ad sales jumped 15 percent, to $1.1 billion thanks to digital growth.

Europe’s biggest publisher, Springer states that Business Insider allows the company to continue its strategy to offer further digital news to English-language sectors. So what will Axel Springer get for the hundreds of millions it will spend on the growing news site? Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, also a previous investor, will own the remaining 3 percent. Springer’s chief financial officer, Julian Deutz, said Tuesday that Business Insider would have been profitable this year had it not invested in global expansion and two new sites, Tech Insider and simply Insider, a general interest offering.

Business Insider boss Henry Blodget is living up to his company’s name.

Business Insider’s acquisition is only the latest in a series of investments and acquisitions of digital pure plays by larger media companies.

But let’s not focus on these dreary trivia while BI is taking its victory lap.