Ousted Hollinger chairman, Lord Black, yesterday claimed that the new board at Hollinger International had deliberately disregarded bids for the entire company in order to freeze him out, reports the Times.
Black is appealing to a US judge in Delaware, where Hollinger is incorporated, to take into account the rights of shareholders to vote on a disposal. He said that the shareholders vote over the sale of the Telegraph Group, the companies crown jewels, were ignored.
Black is arguing that a sale of the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and Spectator magazine does not represent a good deal for shareholders.
In the document, Black says that by March 2004, Hollinger International had received ‘non-bidding indications of interest for 100% of Hollinger’.
According to the documents, one of the bidders was American venture capital group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), which was offering cash per share for the total sum that Gordon Parish, interim chief executive, considered a preemptive price. But after March 2004, Black claims that Mr Paris had stopped all communications with KKR.
Black said that the primary reason behind the corporate review committee, which he formed along with the rest of the group’s executives, was not to sell the company in its entirety which would automatically trigger a shareholder vote.
The documents say that Hollinger International would do be better by holding on to the Telegraph titles and could be more profitable through better management. Black said: “In fact, there is a compelling reason not to sell the Telegraph at this time. In just a few years, the Telegraph group could be twice as profitable.”
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