Independent given okay to buy paper

BELFAST - Independent News & Media has been cleared to buy Northern Ireland's biggest selling newspaper, the Belfast Telegraph, for 300 million pounds($967 million).

The Dublin-based company said there were significant opportunities to expand the profitable operation, which has been benefiting from improving economic conditions since the peace process began.

The British Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Stephen Byers, accepted the unanimous findings of the UK Competition Commission to give the company the go-ahead to buy the firm from Trinity Mirror.

The deal for Independent, which owns the Independent and the Independent on Sunday, represents its second biggest acquisition after it bought Wilson & Horton, publishers of the New Zealand Herald, in 1996.

The Belfast Telegraph, which also publishes Sunday Life newspaper, will become part of Independent News & Media (UK), based in London.

The deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, John Taylor, who also owns provincial newspapers in Northern Ireland, had opposed the deal. He raised a series of concerns about printing jobs being transferred from Belfast to Dublin.

Mr Taylor said yesterday that most of his concerns had been addressed.

In making his decision, Mr Byers said: "I have been mindful of the particular importance of the accurate presentation of news and free expression of opinion in Northern Ireland and the role played by the Belfast Telegraph in appealing to readers across political and religious divides."

He said the Competition Commission had found there was "minimal" competition between daily newspapers in the north of Ireland and titles from the republic.

The Northern Ireland company has a healthy 40 per cent profit margin, pre-tax profits of £23 million and turnover of £56 million.

- INDEPENDENT