SYDNEY: Australia's John Fairfax Holdings Ltd said yesterday it had signed on the dotted line to buy New Zealand's Independent Newspapers (INL) group, and would raise extra debt to finance its NZ$1.2bil purchase rather than sell INL assets.
The change came after the New Zealand government said it would remove a tax loophole that Fairfax wanted to use to make the deal tax-efficient, and the move is expected to halve the earnings growth generated by the deal.
