Month: September 2009

  • The Indo’s (non-existent) coverage of O’Brien’s INM play

    As has been reported across various media today, businessman Denis O’Brien has finally made his play for control of Independent News & Media.

    Coverage of the move in the Irish media is varied to say the least.

    The Irish Examiner led with the story today in an article entitled “O’Brien launches plan for INM takeover”.

    The Irish Times covers O’Brien’s move in its Finance section, describing it as a “last-ditch bid for INM control”, presumably because O’Brien would find it extremely hard to take control of the company should Gavin O’Reilly’s restructuring plan succeed. The newspaper even has some analysis of the move by Arthur Beesley, ensuring their coverage is thorough.

    Curiously The Irish Independent‘s Business supplement leads with a story on the progress made by O’Reilly’s proposal, something covered by The Irish Times – amongst others – a day before.

    The Independent’s story does make vague references to O’Brien’s counter-proposal but resigns it to the last two paragraphs of the piece, stating:

    A spokesman for Denis O’Brien, who owns a 26pc stake in INM, confirmed representatives of the businessman held discussions with lenders on a separate proposal yesterday.

    However, he declined to comment on the outcome of these talks or on reports that Mr O’Brien had offered to put up €100m to part fund a restructuring.

    So are The Irish Independent a day behind on a story about their own parent group and if so, how? Or is there another reason why the newspaper is focusing on the progress made by O’Reilly and not the moves made by O’Brien?