INM to test O’Brien demands
Independent News & Media (IN&M) said yesterday it will hold an extraordinary meeting on 3 November to vote on calls from shareholder Denis O’Brien that the group’s chairman Brian Hillery resign, but it dismissed most of his other demands. A second O’Brien resolution on whether its South African business, INM Outdoor, should be sold will be voted on at a separate extraordinary meeting. But IN&M said O’Brien’s remaining demands, including a call for the sale of loss-making UK broadsheet The Independent would not be put to a shareholder vote because they had no legal effect. O’Brien, who owns 26 per cent of IN&M, is trying to halt the debt-for-equity swap in favour of his own plan, which would see him take control with a €100m (£91m) investment and a cash payment to bondholders.