A former journalist looks set for a £2.7 million payday from the sale of his internet-based financial analysis service. Hugo Dixon is in advanced talks to sell Breakingviews.com to the media giant Thomson Reuters, after agreeing a price of about £10 million.

The deal will also bring a windfall for City luminaries who backed the online venture, including Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, Lord Davies, the trade minister, and investment bankers.

Roland Rudd, senior partner of Finsbury, one of the City’s biggest and most influential public relations firms, stands to make about £1.4 million from the deal, according to records at Companies House.

Mr Dixon, who ran the Lex column in the Financial Times for five years, has been in talks with Thomson Reuters since July. The £10 million price tag was agreed in recent days, according to sources inside Thomson Reuters, which has been seeking to expand the commentary and analysis available on its global news network for more than a year.

The media company has recruited a number of commentators, including Jonathan Ford, who co-founded Breakingviews with Mr Dixon in 1999. Mr Ford no longer has any shares in the business, having left in 2007.

The Breakingviews operation is likely to be left as a separate entity, with its own branding.

The business has about 15,000 direct subscribers. Columns in a string of newspapers, including The New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais and Handelsblatt, have increased its readership to an estimated 4.5 million. It is profitable in Europe but continues to invest heavily in America and Asia.

In total there are more than 40 shareholders in Breakingviews. The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Sunday Times, has a small holding.

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