INL reports $43m half-year profit

Independent Newspapers - the listed company that no longer owns any newspapers - yesterday reported a $43 million half-year profit for the six months to the end of December, up from $38.8 million a year ago.

The result included a $20.5 million after-tax gain on the sale of the Geelong Advertiser newspaper and magazine group.

INL sold the Victoria-based newspaper and magazine group to its parent company, News Limited, for $64 million in August, two months after it sold its New Zealand papers to John Fairfax Holdings for $1.2 billion.

INL's main remaining asset other than cash is its 78.3 per cent of pay television company Sky TV.

Yesterday it declared a 6.4c a share interim dividend, up from 4.5c a year earlier. It also detailed how it would return other cash from the sale of its newspaper assets to shareholders.

Executive chairman Ken Cowley said INL had received initial orders from the High Court for a court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement to return about $340 million to shareholders.

The return will be enacted by cancelling one in six shares and paying $4.66 for each share cancelled. It will be subject to shareholders' approval at a meeting on March 25.

"If shareholders approve the capital return we will then seek final orders from the High Court sanctioning the arrangement," Cowley said.

"Subject to gaining the above approvals and continuing to satisfy the solvency test, we are targeting to make the return of surplus capital to shareholders at the end of April."

During the second half of last year, the group increased its stake in Sky from 66 per cent through a cash and shares takeover offer that netted Telecom's 12 per cent Sky stake.