THE new owners of the Fiji Times took the reins of the country's oldest newspaper today at a private handover in Suva.
The Australian arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation reluctantly sold the Fiji Times to Suva-based conglomerate Motibhai Group for an undisclosed sum last week.
The newspaper, established in 1868, faced closure at the end of the month if News Limited could not find a local buyer after Fiji's interim government passed a decree ruling all media must be 90 per cent locally owned.
Chairman of the Motibhai Group Mahendra Patel and News Ltd CEO John Hartigan attended the handover signing in Fiji's capital at the Pricewaterhouse Coopers building, where the sale was conducted.
"We had a number of bidders and as you know the timeline was very tight but we managed to select Motibhai which saw the process through and we are very pleased with the outcome,'' Pricewaterhouse Coopers spokeswoman Jenny Seeto said.
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Mr Patel said he will meet with newspaper staff before holding a press conference later in the week.
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