Wegener shareholder goes to company court

Thursday 09 July 2009

British investment group Goverance for Owners, which describes itself as an 'independent champion for long-term share owners', is appealing to the company court to have the merger of two Dutch publishing companies put on ice.

Governance for Owners has a minority stake in newspaper group Wegener but is opposed to plans to merge it with the Media Group Limburg, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday.

Wegener publishes a number of regional papers, including the Brabants Dagblad. The Limburg-based group owns the two Limburg provincial papers.

British investment house Mecom is a majority shareholder in Wegener and owner of the Media Groep Limburg. It wants to merge the two and so de-list Wegener from the Amsterdam stock exhange.

Governance for Owners, which has 13% of Wegener, says it was 'extremely surprised' by the Mecom plan. It is proposing an alternative in which Wegener would be split off from Mecom and refinanced and wants the company to court to make time for its plan to be properly considered.

Mecom told the FD it has not yet received the legal request and could not comment.

© DutchNews.nl

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