'Samoana' Dies; New Paper Born

AFTER months of uncertainty about its future Samoa Newspapers Ltd., began its final winding up and the weekly Samoana appeared for the last time on March 1. However, the newspaper re-appeared on March 15 as the Apia weekly Advertiser.

Samoa Newspapers Ltd. was ordered into liquidation from July last year as a result of a petition from Mr. and Mrs, A. Annandale and Mr. and Mrs. K. von Reiche who owned 50 per cent, of the £B,OOO capital.

The petitioners claimed a deadlock had been reached between them and the other shareholders—founder of the company, managing director and editor R. F. Rankin and his mother- -in-law, Mrs. P. Forsgren, who owned

the other 50 per cent, Rankin and Mrs. Forsgren offered to buy out the other share holders at a price fixed by indepen dent arbitration; or sell at the same price provided their claims on the company, which they were prepared to have fixed by the Court, were also paid up. Both offers were refused, The liquidator, Herman Thomsen, decided to keep the company going to establish its value and to sell it as a going concern, However the Court ordered an abrupt halt when it was learnt that Rankin proposed bringing out a new paper.

The new paper is about 70 per cent, owned by Rankin and Mrs.

Forsgren and the rest by investors from the US.