Bid 'welcomed'

The board committee of Newspaper Publishing, which publishes the Independent and the Independent on Sunday, yesterday welcomed the higher bid for the company from the consortium that includes Mirror Group Newspapers. But the committee, which comprises the directors not involved in the bid, said it was seeking details of agreements the consortium's members had made with each other over the allotment of stakes and the service agreements for the printing and management of the newspapers.

A spokesman for Tony O'Reilly, whose Irish Independent Newspapers has taken a 24.99 per cent stake, said that the Irish group also wanted to assess the arrangements before deciding on any further moves.