{"id":12546,"date":"2012-07-19T00:59:40","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T22:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/update-1-independent-news-media-eyes-s-africa-unit-sale\/"},"modified":"2012-07-19T00:59:40","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T22:59:40","slug":"update-1-independent-news-media-eyes-s-africa-unit-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-independent-news-media-eyes-s-africa-unit-sale\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-Independent News &amp; Media eyes S.Africa unit sale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Says received unsolicited expressions of interest<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* No decision made on divestment<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* CFO to leave in October<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>DUBLIN, July 18 (Reuters) &#8211; Irish publishing group<br \/>\nIndependent News  Media said it is looking at a<br \/>\npossible sale of its South African unit following informal and<br \/>\nunsolicited expressions of interest in the unit.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Dublin-based group, which also announced the departure<br \/>\nof its chief financial officer who was ousted from the board<br \/>\nlast month, said it had appointed advisors to look at a range of<br \/>\noptions for its South Africa operations.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The publisher has radically restructured in recent years,<br \/>\nselling its flagship UK title the Independent, as well as<br \/>\ninterests in India and shutting loss-making newspapers in<br \/>\nIreland.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It added that it had not made any decision regarding a<br \/>\ndivestment of its South Africa unit, which notched up 37.6<br \/>\nmillion euros ($46.11 million) in underlying operating profit<br \/>\nlast year, a 14 percent drop year-on-year. This compared to 45.6<br \/>\nmillion euros at its Southern and Northern Irish unit, which was<br \/>\ndown 15 percent.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Shareholders voted the chairman, James Osborne, and chief<br \/>\nfinancial officer, Donal Buggy, off the board last month after<br \/>\ntelecoms billionaire Denis O&#8217;Brien lead a revolt in the wake of<br \/>\nrival Gavin O&#8217;Reilly stepping down as chief executive in April.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s departure ended his family&#8217;s 30-year control of<br \/>\nIreland&#8217;s largest media company and years of bitter squabbling<br \/>\nbetween O&#8217;Brien and the O&#8217;Reilly family.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Buggy, who will leave the group on Oct. 5, will be replaced<br \/>\nby Eamonn O&#8217;Kennedy, the group&#8217;s finance director of its Irish<br \/>\nand Northern Ireland operations since 2011.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Says received unsolicited expressions of interest * No decision made on divestment * CFO to leave in October DUBLIN, July 18 (Reuters) &#8211; Irish publishing group Independent News Media said it is looking at a possible sale of its South African unit following informal and unsolicited expressions of interest in the unit. The Dublin-based [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}