O’Brien calls EGM to halt sale and oust director

DENIS O’BRIEN has hit back at Independent News & Media’s (INM’s) planned sale of its South African outdoor advertising subsidiary, by calling for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to block the move and make further changes to the INM board.

At the presentation of its interim financial results, last Friday, INM announced that it had reached agreement to sell its INM Outdoor subsidiary in South Africa for around €98 million to local company, Helios Investment Partners, adding that the transaction’s “Class 1” nature automatically needed 50.1% approval from shareholders at an EGM, to be held later this year.

INM chief executive Gavin O’Reilly said that the sale – a move previously opposed by Mr O’Brien, the group’s second largest shareholder behind Tony O’Reilly – was “a board decision” and the board was confident of achieving approval.

Yesterday, Mr O’Brien effectively ended the peace which had seemingly broken out between him and the O’Reillys by calling for an EGM to vote on a number of resolutions of which putting the brakes on the South African sale was only one.

Mr O’Brien, who owns a 25% stake in INM, has also reiterated his call for the disposal of the group’s two London-based newspaper titles (the Independent and the Independent on Sunday) and the relocation of its London-based executive office to its Dublin headquarters.

INM has repeatedly claimed that none of its publishing assets are up for sale and added, yesterday, that such immediate moves in London would bring further cost concerns in the form of “significant guaranteed contractual costs” thought to be in the region of £30m (€34m).

Meanwhile, Mr O’Brien has also called for the group to cease its €100,000 per year payment for international consultancy services to Cansult Communications, the international business consultancy run by former Canadian prime minister and INM board member Brian Mulroney and his wife.

Mr O’Brien said he also wants a stop to an annual salary of €300,000 paid to former chief executive Tony O’Reilly for his new role as President Emeritus – to which INM claimed no contractual obligations exist and no payments have been made in this regard.

The question of full independence of INM board members was also raised again by Mr O’Brien – curious in that three members of the O’Reilly family left and three business associates of Mr O’Brien joined the board as part of its restructuring last March.

He has called for Brian Hillery to be replaced as group chairman and a new senior independent director appointed “with immediate effect”.