In 1999, the US Gannett media group's newly formed UK subsidiary paid £922 million (about US $1.5 billion) for Newsquest and took on the company’s debt. In 2000, Gannett paid £525 million for Southampton-based News Communications and Media’s South Coast dailies and weeklies – and its Southernprint magazine printing division – to add to Newsquest’s portfolio. It also picked up the regional newspapers business – outside Manchester – of the Guardian Media Group, a takeover that the Competition Commission cleared as there was "no overlap, in the companies' circulation areas".