The owner of The Independent will receive around €100m (£67.8m) for its 37% stake in iTouch, which it first invested in in 1997. The company is behind ringtones, games, and news content for mobile devices.
For-side.com is acquiring iTouch in order to enter Europe and battle for a greater share of the mobile content market, which was worth £34bn last year.
The £51m windfall is nearly half the group's total pre-tax profits of £118.1m for 2004. Sir Anthony O'Reilly, INM's chief executive, called the result "spectacular" and "a most rewarding journey for all of our shareholders".
The group said the money would go towards reducing debt and into its newspapers. It owns titles in the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and in December acquired 26% of Indian newspaper publisher Jagran Prakashan.
INM has invested heavily in changing The Independent to a compact last year and redesigning the paper into a single section newspaper earlier this month.
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