Tis WAR! O'Brien v O'Reilly

mike65

Interesting bit of business developing on the Indo group as Dennis (it was'nt a giveaway) O'Brien continues to get under the skin of Sir Anthony (Tony) O'Reilly esq. Ever since O'Rielly got the better of O'Brien in the eircom buyout battle the latter has been plotting his revenge by buying up shares in Independent News and Media, he now has an 8.3% stake and is starting to pose questions of the boards proberty and its ability to run INM.

I dunno at what point Irelands jammiest paper billionaire could trigger a coup but I can only belive thats his ultimate aim.

Mike.

pjproby

it is interesting ok, two tax exiles slugging it out, what is o'brien at though? i presume he paid a lot of money for that critical report that he published today. i suspect any journalist in Dublin could have written it at a fraction of the cost. the one definite effect of that report was that the share price dropped by as much as 18 cents at one stage, did o;brien move in then and buy some more shares?

flogen

Worth keeping in mind that the O'Reilly's only have 29% of the company - not like they're all that close to a majority (although they do have control) - in other words there are plenty of shares out there if the price is right.

I wonder how much sense this would make to O'Brien as a business move as I find it hard to believe that this is pure revenge - just like I don't believe that Magnier and McManus were buying into Man Utd. just to get back at Ferguson.

There are obvious "synergies" between IN&M and Communicorp - while they're both media companies there's no overlap in their Irish offerings as one is just involved in radio while the other is just involved in print (actually - O'Brien has something to do with Metro Éireann, but that might be seperate to Communicorp). Other than that they're not even working out of the same countries with Communicorp going for Eastern Europe and IN&M going for Australasia and Africa. IN&M is involved with plenty of radio stations in Australia and South Africa, which might be of interest to O'Brien - maybe he's hoping to force O'Reilly's hand and get these in some kind of pay-off.

It's very interesting - I think O'Brien would need to spend his recent Digicel windfall (n the region of €600 million) just to get the needed shares to spark a takeover bid, and that's assuming that O'Reilly takes it lying down, which he won't.

Maybe he'll envoke a "poison pill"-type policy to block him off, but the Irish rules would be far stricter than elsewhere on this so he'd have to be inventive!

haz

It was hilarious hearing Tony O'Reilly defending Independent News & Media against charges of corporate cronyism by saying they had excellent financial results - so that's alright then.

And Gavin O'Reilly saying that Denis was really unfair to complain about the "family-firm" image - at his dad's company. (What a weird accent - the benefits of multinational tax-reduced public schooling).

jrey1981

If O'Brien is serious about getting his hands on it, what does he want it for though?

I can only guess he's got his eye on the overseas interests in emerging markets like India. The Irish operation is a nice cash cow and I can only think that he would sell off the loss-making UK titles unless he's happy to stick with it for the long haul and in particular stand behind Simon Kelner's distinct editorial values.

haz

jrey1981 wrote:

If O'Brien is serious about getting his hands on it, what does he want it for though?

There are assets like Jagran Prakashan, Independent South Africa and a proposed Indian language South African paper. These China and South America are the fastest growing mobile markets and fastest growing economies. But attacking the company before, during and after investing in it is odd behaviour. The share price went from 2.22 to a high of 3.91 after O'Brien's interest was noted, so he has paid high for nobody believing it was a straight investment decision.