ON HIS LinkedIn profile Custos Group chief executive Christen Ager-Hanssen extols the virtues of having “a life philosophy and a clear world view”.
What that philosophy boils down to, according to the website of the investment firm he has run for the past four years, is “a passion for disruptive innovation” and a belief that businesses either have to “disrupt or be disrupted”.
For Johnston Press the enormity of what that means is starting to become clear, with the Norwegian businessman, who happens to own 20 per cent of the company’s shares, believing its management is incapable of disrupting the media industry itself and so must be forcibly disrupted instead.
His goal, he told The Telegraph last month, is to “become the new Murdoch for the new age of this industry”.
Having only been in newspapers since the start of this year, when he bought the Swedish version of Metro, it may be a bold ambition.
But with Mr Ager-Hanssen’s pursuit of Johnston Press continuing despite being chastened by a poison-pill clause, one thing is clear: hurdles only seem likely to make his resolve stronger.
Whether that ambition will be allowed to continue unchecked will now be up to fellow Johnston Press shareholders to decide.
Mr Ager-Hanssen may well find himself disrupted yet.
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