APN’s 2nd largest shareholder wants CEO and chairman out – won’t support capital raising

The Australian reports that APN News & Media’s second-largest shareholder, Simon Marais, supports the potential resignations of the company’s chief executive and chairman, and will not support a proposed capital raising.

“It’s better that they go because it’s a silly thing to do … putting the cart before the horse,”  Marais, the managing director of fund manager Allan Gray, told The Australian this morning.

“The important thing to do is turn the business around and get it fixed,”

Earlier today The Australian reported chief executive Brett Chenoweth, chairman Peter Hunt and three non-executive directors may tender their resignations today as they face a block vote against a proposed capital raising.

“I think they need to make a clean break, get a new board, and run the business. The good thing is that it’s not like the CEO is critical to the business. You’ve got operating businesses and two of them are joint ventures anyway so it doesn’t really matter,” Marais told The Australian. “And then there’s the newspaper business which is probably the business they know least about anyway. I’m sure there’s a lot of good newspapers executives around at the moment.”

APN declined to comment when asked to respond to Marais’s comments.

The company is expected to make another announcement later today “concerning the potential capital raising and other matters”.

 

 

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