JOHNSTON Press is staging a fightback against the activist investor bidding to seize control of the newspaper group and install former First Minister Alex Salmond on to its board, sending its share price soaring in morning trading.
READ MORE: Gordon Brown: Salmond 'unhelpful' in initial aftermath of Glasgow terrorist attack
Media investment company Custos Group, which owns 20 per cent of the publisher of The Scotsman, requisitioned yesterday an extraordinary general meeting of the company along with resolutions to install Mr Salmond and newspaper veteran Steve Auckland as directors. Custos, led by Norwegian billionaire Christen Ager-Hanssen, also called for the removal of Johnston chairman Camilla Rhodes.
However the Johnston board announced to the stock market this morning that it has been advised that the requisition notice received on November 6 is invalid.
READ MORE: Gordon Brown: Salmond 'unhelpful' in initial aftermath of Glasgow terrorist attack
“In the event that the Board receives a valid requisition request, the Board will put the proposed
resolution(s) to Shareholders,” it said in a statement.
Shares in Johnston Press rose by nearly seven per cent in morning trading.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article