By Nina Sovich
PARIS, Nov 5 (Reuters) - French daily newspaper Le Parisien will stay in family hands, the owners said on Friday, following an attempt to sell to some of France's wealthiest businessmen.
The family-run Groupe Amaury put out feelers to sell Le Parisien and its sister newspaper Aujourd'hui en France earlier this year, just after France's most prestigious daily Le Monde was put up for auction.
The family, which also owns popular sports daily L'Equipe and organizes the Tour de France and Paris-Dakar Rally, was looking to sell Le Parisien, which by some estimates has the biggest daily circulation in France, in order to focus on its sports business, said a source involved in the process. But the sale of the newspaper, known for its lively writing style and investigative reporting, had been troubled from the start. One investment banker close to the process said the family wanted 200 million euros for the paper while potential investors thought 50 million "would be a rich price."
The Amaury family said in the statement on Friday that it had decided that both Le Parisien and Aujourd'hui en France were strategic assets that would enable the group to become leaders of French media.
Investment bank Rothschilds handled the sale and initially fielded interest from some of France's best known industrialists. Aerospace and media mogul Serge Dassault's holding company said in September it would take a look, as did billionaire Vincent Bollore.
Private equity firm Fondations Capital and Belgian media company Groupe Rossel also teamed up to consider making an offer.
The mass-market newspaper, which is thought to be loss-making but less so than rivals, was ripe for a turnaround with job cuts, said the banker.
France's increasingly political and troubled newspapers suffer from the usual media ills -- falling advertising revenues and readers moving to the Internet. But France is also burdened by an antiquated and state-sponsored distribution system.
In the face of these pressures, many of France's top dailies have been lapped up by French billionaires and business tycoons looking for a platform to express their political views.
Le Monde was bought by a trio of left-leaning businessmen, including Lazard banker Matthieu Pigasse, Xavier Niel, who founded the telecoms group Free, and Pierre Berge, a wealthy industrialist and patron best known as the long-time partner of designer Yves Saint Laurent.
Financial daily Les Echos is owned by Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury goods group LVMH, while Serge Dassault owns conservative newspaper le Figaro. (Additional reporting by Gwenaelle Barzic; Editing by Greg Mahlich)