pounds 15m for Zoom

ASSOCIATED Newspapers Limited, owner of the Daily Mail and London Evening Standard, has made a pounds 15m investment in Internet shopping website and service provider Zoom.co.uk. The deal makes Zoom a 50:50 joint venture between ANL and Arcadia, the retail group that launched Zoom.

ANL will pay pounds 5m in cash on completion, plus an additional pounds 10m over the next five years. Zoom will be promoted in ANL's printed publications, which have a combined weekly readership of more than nine million. The newspapers will adopt Zoom as their own e-commerce and services provider. ANL's advertisers will be encouraged to use Zoom for e-commerce.