Reuters float profit not yet calculated

Press, 9 March 1984, Page 5

Reuters float profit not yet calculated

PA Nelson Questions concerning the shareholdings in Reuters, Ltd, were not yet finalised, the chairman of the New Zealand Press Association, Mr J. C. S. Smith, told the association’s annual meeting in Nelson yesterday.

Complex negotiations made it not possible to supply specific information. However, it was now clear that Reuters, the international news agency in which N.Z.P.A. has a shareholding, would make a public flotation later in the year, he said. Financial gain was possible but until the final details of the float were known amounts could not be assessed, Mr Smith said. N.Z.P.A. now holds 2.72 per cent of the issued capital of Reuters. The other shareholders are the Press Association, representing provincial newspapers in

the United Kingdom and Ireland; the Newspaper Publishers’ Association, representing Fleet Street interests; and Australian Associated Press. Mr Smith said that the asosication’s consultants had been studying the float and when those studies had been done and considered by the board, further information would be available to newspaper companies. Mr Smith, the managing director of Otago Press and Produce, Ltd, publisher of the “Otago Daily Times,” was re-elected chairman of the association for a second term.