Nahed Ojjeh, the Syrian-born chess promoter, has increased her stake in Cordiant Communications to more than 10%, it was revealed last night.
The crisis-torn advertising group has told the stock exchange that Mrs Ojjeh, the widow of a Saudi billionaire, had “built a stake in the company during the period 10 June 2003 to 4 July 2003 of approximately 10.75%”.
The motives of the new shareholder are unknown but she claims to have had no contact with Active Value, which now controls 28.75% of Cordiant. The US fund has previously intimated that it intends to block WPP’s attempted takeover of the indebted market services company.
Mrs Ojjeh’s name was raised last week when it was revealed that she had purchased a 2% stake in Cordiant. Strictly speaking, the rules of the takeover panel have been breached because as an investor with more than a 1% share in a company earmarked for takeover, she failed to disclose her dealings within 24 hours.
However, Cordiant has said that Mrs Ojjeh will be “making full disclosure of her interests and dealings” in due course. Shares in the company were up 0.25p at 3.75p at midday today.
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