Conrad Black retires as Hollinger looks at asset sell-off

by Jennifer Whitehead,, Brand Republic 17-Nov-03, 09:10

LONDON - Conrad Black is retiring from his role as chief executive officer at Hollinger International as the company looks at a potential sell-off of its assets, including the Telegraph Group, in the wake of financial problems.

Lord Black is just one of several senior board members to quit the company, which faces investigation by US regulators over its admission last week that it filed false statements to the Securities & Exchange Commission about executive pay, including a $7.2m (£4.26m) payment to Lord Black.

It said today that it had retained Lazard LLC to look at strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company or one or more of its major properties. Lord Black said that he would devote his time now to looking at the potential sale. He remains as non-executive chairman of Hollinger and chairman of the Telegraph Group.

Along with the Daily Telegraph, Hollinger owns the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Times and the UK political magazine The Spectator, as well as a 50% stake in West Ferry Printers, the largest newspaper printing operation in Europe.

In a statement issued by the company, Lord Black said: "Now is the appropriate time to explore strategic opportunities to maximise value for all shareholders of Hollinger International. We are delighted that Bruce Wasserstein and his team at Lazard will be working with us to ensure the market is well aware of the substantial value of the company's assets.

"Reflecting my full support of this process, I will be devoting my attention in coming months to achieving a successful outcome for all Hollinger shareholders. The present structure of the group clearly must be renovated. As the strategic process proceeds, we will continue to cooperate entirely with the special committee to resolve corporate governance concerns."

Lord Black will retire on November 21. In the same statement, the company said that the president and chief operation officer of Hollinger, David Radler, and vice-president and corporate counsel Mark Kipnis had resigned with immediate effect.

Radler is to be replaced in the interim by Gordon Paris, currently a director of the company, and Daniel Colson, deputy chairman and CEO of the Telegraph Group, will take on the additional responsibility of chief operating officer of Hollinger.

Hollinger made $32.15m in payments between 1999 and 2001, which it described as "non-competition" payments in connection with sales of US community newspaper properties. They were not authorised by the audit committee or the full board of directors at Hollinger. The recipients of the payments, Radler, Lord Black and Peter Atkinson have agreed to repay the full amount with interest to Hollinger by June 2004.

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