The Financial Times today announced the appointment of John Paul Rathbone as deputy editor of the Lex column. Based in London, Rathbone will join Lex, the Financial Times’ renowned business and financial column, in early August.

Rathbone’s move to the Financial Times follows the recent appointment of Jo Johnson as the new editor of the Lex column. Johnson, currently based in New Delhi, will take up the role of editor of Lex in June 2008, having previously been the South Asia bureau chief.

Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, commented, ”I am delighted that John Paul will be joining Lex – he is an experienced and thoughtful financial commentator.”

Rathbone joins Lex from BreakingViews.com, where he has worked since 2000. Between 1996 and 2000, he was an international financial correspondent at Reuters. Prior to this, Rathbone worked at the World Bank in Washington DC. He is a graduate of Oxford University, where he studied anthropology, and Columbia University NY, where he received a masters in Economics. In 2005, he was elected a senior member of St Antony’s College Oxford.

One of the few parts of FT.com only available to Premium subscribers, Lex is the Financial Times’ agenda-setting column on business and finance. It covers everything from individual companies, their strategies and management to global macro-economics. The Lex column first appeared on the back page of the Financial Times on Monday 1 October 1945. It is written by a team of 12 people, based in Europe, Asia and the United States.

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For further information, please contact:

Jo Crosby, Financial Times, 020 7873 3811 or jo.crosby@ft.com

Kristina Eriksson, Financial Times, 020 7873 4961 or kristina.eriksson@ft.com

About the Financial Times:

The Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business newspapers, is recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Providing extensive news, comment and analysis, the newspaper is printed at 24 print sites across the globe, has a daily circulation of 448,342 (ABC figures, February 2008) and a readership of more than 1.3 million people worldwide. FT.com is one of the world’s leading business information websites, and the internet partner of the FT newspaper. FT.com is the definitive home for business intelligence on the web, providing an essential source of news, comment, data and analysis for the global business community. FT.com attracts 6.2 million unique users, generating 48 million page views. FT.com has 101,000 subscribers.