Seven Group CEO Says Made No Decision on News Corp. Bid for Consolidated Media

   By Gavin Lower 
 

MELBOURNE--Seven Group Holdings Ltd. (SVW.AU) is yet to decide whether it will sell its 25% stake in Consolidated Media Holdings Ltd. (CMJ.AU) to News Corp. (NWS), Chief Executive Peter Gammell told analysts and reporters during a conference call Tuesday.

News Corp., the owner of The Wall Street Journal, has proposed buying Consolidated Media, which holds 25% of leading pay television company Foxtel, for 1.97 billion Australian dollars (US$2.04 billion).

"It's hard to make a decision without a proposal. In the fullness of time I'm sure that News will come forward with some proposal and we'll give you our reaction at that time," Mr. Gammell said.

Asked about Seven Group's request to Australia's competition regulator, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, for a review of whether it could buy the shares in Consolidated Media it doesn't already own, Mr. Gammell said the company wanted to know what alternatives were available to it.

"That doesn't mean to say that we are going to buy it, it just means we want to know whether we can buy it then we'll make that decision as well," he said.

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