Victory for O’Brien in crusade for more independent ‘Independent’

It may have taken six years to achieve, but yesterday’s resignation of Gavin O’Reilly as the head of the country’s largest media group will widely be seen as a victory for Denis O’Brien and his crusade for a more ‘independent’ Independent.

Because of this, arguably the most surprising element of yesterday’s developments at INM was the lack of public reaction from Mr O’Brien — a spokesperson confirmed yesterday evening he would not be commenting on the matter.

Since investing in INM just over six years ago, Mr O’Brien has — save for the odd hiatus — been at loggerheads with the O’Reilly family over their running of the business.

Over the past year, he has been the most vocal cheerleader for the removal of Mr O’Reilly as chief executive.

In November, the gloves were well and truly off as Mr O’Brien launched his most withering attack, stating that Mr O’Reilly’s position had become “untenable”, having lost investor confidence and presiding over “a near total collapse in shareholder value”.

It had been widely anticipated that Mr O’Brien — previously branded a dissident investor by the O’Reillys — was gearing up to launch a fresh assault on the O’Reillys’ remaining grip on the INM controls at the company’s AGM in early June.

All the more reason why INM’s largest individual shareholder, with a 22% stake which hasreportedly lost him in excess of half a million euro, was conspicuous by his silence yesterday.

However, some good news for investors was the continued momentum in INM’s share price. Up nearly 13% over the last week, INM shares rose another 6.6% yesterday to 24c.

Less than a month ago, Mr O’Reilly was stressing — on the back of a set of annual results that were about as good as could have been expected — that he had a “very, very strong and clear mandate” from shareholders, 99.8% of whom voted in his favour at last year’s AGM.

He added at the time that he was open to meeting high-profile investors to gauge concerns.

However, yesterday he hinted that his departure was for the good of INM, saying shareholder tensions were proving “an unnecessary distraction... not in the best interests of the company”.