Ojjeh Reprimanded Over Cordiant Dealings

Nahed Ojjeh, the wealthy Syrian investor who has built up a 10% stake in Cordiant Communications, has received a stern rebuke from the Takeover Panel for failing to declare her acquisitions in a prompt fashion.

Cordiant is the subject of a takeover bid by WPP and in such instances, shareholders with a stake of more than 1% are duty bound to disclose their dealings by noon the following day.

Between July 1 and July 8, Mrs Ojjeh increased her stake in the company from 2% to 9.89% but failed to disclose any of her share dealings in a proper manner and falsely claimed to have acquired a 10.75% holding.

In a statement yesterday, the Takeover Panel said: “The executive regrets that these breaches of the code occurred and considers that these breaches of the code occurred and considers that the conduct of Mrs Ojjeh has fallen short of the standards required by the parties involved in the takeovers.”

It is understood that Mrs Ojjeh has apologised unreservedly for her actions which stemmed from a lack of familiarity with UK regulations.

However, a separate investigation is believed to have uncovered no evidence that she had acted in concert with Active Value, Cordiant’s leading shareholder or the French advertising group, Publicis to bring about a change of control at the targeted company.

Mrs Ojjeh now has a 10.95% stake in Cordiant and will have a large say in deciding whether the WPP deal gets the go ahead at next Wednesday’s shareholder meeting.

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