by Tatiana Repkova

Acquisitive newspaper group Mecom has reached agreement to buy Wegener, the Netherlands' largest regional newspaper group, for €805.7 million, to take its spending over the past year to well over £1 billion.

Aim-listed Mecom acquired 23.7 percent of Wegener's depositary receipts, equivalent to 20 percent of its shares, in March from the Telegraaf group. It is now moving to mop up the rest with an offer worth €17.7 cash or €18 in Mecom shares that values the Dutch group at €805.7m at the level of the share offer. Over the past year, Mecom has acquired Norwegian newspaper group Orkla for £650 million and a 90 percent stake in German newspaper group Berliner Verlag for over £100 million as it builds a pan-European newspaper and media group.

http://www.sharecast.com/cgi-bin/sharecast/story.cgi?story_id=1264526; May 8, 2007