Independent News & Media today announced it has agreed to buy a 26 per cent stake in Indian newspaper publisher, Jagran Prakashan Private Ltd, for €25 million.
JPPL is publisher of the Hindi-language Dainik Jagran, India's largest selling (over 1.99 million copies per day) daily newspaper.
The group said the transaction is subject to Indian government approval and is expected to complete in early 2005.
The announcement came in a trading update in which the company said results for 2004 would be in line with market expectations.
In its outlook for next year, the group said its exposure to some of the world's fastest growing economies and the ongoing pursuit of cost efficiencies, placed it at the forefront of comparable media companies.
Chief executive, Sir Anthony O'Reilly said: "2004 has proven to be an important year for Independent News & Media. A long-overdue - yet broad-based and well-diversified - positive revenue trend, coupled with extremely good cost management, will generate a strong result for the year 2004, in line with market forecasts."
"In looking forward, our simple aim at Independent is to be the low cost producer in every region in which we operate. With this as a background and with a strong finish in the current year, I am confident that we will again show a meaningful increase in earnings for 2005."
Shares in Independent News, which is due to publish full-year results on March 16th, were up 0.4 per cent at €2.27 this morning, performing broadly in line with a 0.3 per cent rise for the broader Irish market.