INDEPENDENT Newspapers now controls almost 67 per cent of the shares in the New Zealand newspaper group Wilson & Horton and said it would happy with less than full control when its £440 million offer expires Friday week.

Independent director Mr Brendan Hopkins said: "We obviously pitched the offer at what we thought was a very fair price and we'd be happy with whatever we end up with whether it's 70 per cent. 80, 95 or 100 per cent."

Independent can now consolidate Wilson & Horton into its own accounts and Mr Hopkins said that now that the group had reached 67 per cent, there were important tax advantages.

Independent needs to get acceptances in respect of 90 per cent of W&H shares to be able to compulsorily acquire the remaining shares.

If Independent does not reach this level, then there are restrictions on what Independent could do to get more shares once the offer has closed.

"There are some very firm restrictions of 5 per cent that you can buy in any one year. In fact the way it is looking at the moment, and our advisers are looking at this, it almost seems certain that we are already caught within the 5 per cent rule, so we probably wouldn't be able to buy more shares," said Mr Hopkins.

Mr Hopkins said "As far as we are concerned if people want to stay in, fine, we'll accommodate them."

"It's not a problem, we're very used to having very significant shareholdings with minorities but at the same time we'll run the company, obviously and we'll carry on and do what we want to do."