News Corp. Web push accelerates with Aussie deal

SYDNEY/LONDON: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. accelerated its expansion onto the Web, announcing a planned takeover bid for Australian online property-listings site realestate.com.au.

The deal, valued at A$120.9 million ($91 million), is the second by the media conglomerate in less than a month and comes shortly after Murdoch publicly scolded the newspaper industry for being too slow to respond to the Internet.

News Corp., which raised its stake in realestate.com.au to 43.7 percent, said it would offer A$2 cash per share for the remaining shares -- a 19 percent premium to Friday's closing price of A$1.68.

"It's a straightforward full cash offer with limited conditions and no minimum acceptance condition," said John Hartigan, the chief executive of News Corp.'s Australian operation, News Ltd.

The realestate.com.au site provides Internet services to the real-estate industry and has online listings of homes and land for sale. It is one of Australia's 20 most-visited Web sites.

"The threat of losing print advertising dollars to online media is very real," Murdoch said in a speech to newspaper editors in April. "In fact, it's already happening, particularly in classifieds."

News Corp., home to the 20th Century Fox film studio, Britain's Times newspaper and the Fox U.S. television network, last month agreed to buy Intermix Media, owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking site, for $580 million.