Adelson again looking into buying “Ma’ariv”

Sheldon Adelson reportedly wants to buy all the newspaper’s share capital, becoming its sole owner

15 March 07 15:21, Yael Gaoni

Sources inform ''Globes'' that Newsco, owned by Sheldon Adelson, is conducting due diligence into Hebrew daily “Ma.ariv”. The company denies the report. Adelson reportedly wants to buy all the newspaper’s share capital, becoming its sole owner. One reason for this is to avoid the financial and legal battles that occurred between Newsco and its partner in the “Israeli” free newspaper, Hirsch Media, owned by Shlomo Ben-Tzvi.

Adelson recently decided to reexamine the possibility of acquiring “Ma’ariv” from the Nimrodi family, after dropping the idea four months ago. If he does buy “Ma’ariv”, he will probably drop the idea of founding a new free newspaper “Israel Today”, which would compete with “Israeli”.

On Tuesday, Ofer Nimrodi denied any negotiations with Adelson, and was unavailable for comment today.

A Newsco spokesman declined to comment on the report, saying, “In addition to the $8.3 million lawsuit against Ben-Tzvi, Adelson plans to set up a free newspaper ‘Israel Today’. There were in the past preliminary talks relating to the acquisition of ‘Ma’ariv’, which were broken off.”

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on March 15, 2007

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2007