6th Mar 2001

New Zealand Subsidiary Results for the Year Ended 31 December 2000

Wilson & Horton Holdings ("WHH") today announced record operating profits before interest, tax and associated companies' results, for the year 2000 of NZ$96.7m, up 12.3% on the previous year. This result was delivered on operating revenue growth of 3.9%. Whilst revenues flattened in the second half after an unseasonably strong first half, WHH outperformed market conditions following a number of strategic initiatives. Excluding operating losses from WHH's New Media businesses, underlying operating profits improved 15.8%.

A dividend of 20 cents per share will be paid on the company's cumulative exchangeable preference shares, in accordance with the issue documents. The payment date will be 31 May 2001, with this dividend fully imputed for taxation purposes.

During 2000, WHH restructured the majority of its foreign currency borrowings into New Zealand denominated debt, thereby ensuring that most of the adverse currency movements, which had been a feature of the Company's results in past years, are now eliminated. As a result, the interest charge has increased by NZ$32.1m and the exceptional items include foreign exchange losses of NZ$34.2m. This foreign exchange loss has no impact on Independent News & Media PLC's ("INM") consolidated profit and loss account under Irish Accounting Standards.

WHH is a wholly owned subsidiary of INM which is a global newspaper and media company with leading market positions in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Upon maturity in 2003, holders of WHH cumulative exchangeable preference shares may elect to exchange one preference share for either NZ$8.00 cash, or two INM ordinary shares. As a result the underlying value and performance of W&H Holdings shares is determined by the consolidated performance of INM. At 05 March 2001, INM's ordinary shares were quoted on the Irish Stock Exchange at Euro2.89 (NZ$6.21), which translates to NZ$12.42 for each WHH preference share held.

Consistent with last year, a meeting will be held on 6 June 2001 in Auckland to fully brief WHH shareholders on the 2000 performance of INM, and specifically WHH.

Operations Review

The New Zealand Herald

The New Zealand Herald had another successful year, with solid advances in revenues, readership and editorial accolades. From its excellent coverage of the America's Cup, to the Olympics, to the Fiji Coup, the New Zealand Herald's position as New Zealand's No.1 newspaper was further enhanced. Having secured a substantial number of prestigious awards (Best Newspaper Overall for the Weekend Herald at both the Qantas Media Awards and at the Commonwealth Newspaper of the Year Awards, Best Daily Newspaper for the weekday New Zealand Herald at the Commonwealth Awards, Qantas Awards and the PANPA Newspaper of the Year Awards), these accolades were underscored by impressive advances in readership. With underlying readership up by nearly 1%, the Herald is now read regularly by almost one million New Zealanders each week.

During 2000, the company invested in new product development, world-class prepress systems, increased training programs, new office environments, and critically, invested in its people, with many senior editorial staff appointments - including the recent promotion of well known journalist Fran O'Sullivan to assistant editor. These strategic investments have all contributed to ensuring that The Herald continues to further develop New Zealand's best editorial talent and coverage.

In addition, The Herald invested heavily in a new circulation management database to further enhance its relationship with its growing home delivery customer base.

A major press investment of over NZ$10m was made in 2000 to further increase colour capacity at the Ellerslie print centre, ensuring additional premium colour availability for advertisers, particularly in the real estate and retail sectors.

Regional Newspapers

With a stronger regional marketplace, the staff of the Regional Newspapers division delivered an extremely strong performance in 2000. The Wanganui Chronicle posted the strongest percentage lift in circulation of all newspapers in New Zealand. The recently launched Hawke's Bay Today posted the strongest percentage lift in circulation of all newspapers over 25,000 copies in New Zealand. Following a number of product enhancements across the division, all the regional daily titles performed well in increasing their core paper sales. In addition, improved results from the Auckland Communities and Christchurch Star were also highlights.

W&H Print

The print group had an excellent result, following judicious investments in new technologies, which were based on improving quality, core efficiencies and service levels. During the year, the Security Plastics and Bankprint divisions became Trans-Tasman, having been awarded the ANZ Bank cheque printing contract in Australia and following the acquisition of NBS Pty Ltd and Cardcorp Pty Ltd; the expansion of which moves the Security Plastics operation into the fast growing Smartcard arena. With the operational strengths of Security Plastics now straddling both sides of the Tasman, W&H Print will now further develop its Asian export market.

W&H Specialist Publications

Despite a weak domestic mass market magazine sector, the New Zealand Woman's Weekly continued to dominate, being the most widely read magazine in New Zealand with approximately 1 million readers each week. Strong readership franchises for both Woman's Weekly and the Listener produced very strong advertising revenues.

The UBD & Wises Maps divisions continued to successfully exploit new opportunities in new media, Internet, and CD-Rom, which have yielded new distribution channels for their very valuable business and mapping databases. These innovations have helped UBD post exceptional profit growth in 2000.

W&H Digital

Following a year of prudent investment to build a leading Internet presence, WHH took the lead in late 2000 in rationalising expenses in response to the rapidly changing market environment. However, through a tight strategic and cost focus on limited initiatives - which leverage the traditional trusted offline brands - this division will increasingly offer a dual online and offline service in a cost efficient manner to all Wilson & Horton customers.

Outlook

Trading for the first two months has met expectations but was marginally behind the extremely buoyant first quarter of last year driven primarily from the America's Cup. The full year though is expected to show meaningful profit growth on 2000.

J H Maasland Chairman Ends. Tuesday, 6th March 2000 For Reference: James Parkinson Independent News & Media PLC Tel: +353 - 1 - 466 3200

Jim Milton/Pauline McAlester Murray Consultants Limited Tel: +353 - 1 - 663 3332