Friday, October 30, 2009 3:55 PM
Another investment opportunity - don't delay!
Brian Topp
And now, an update from Report On Business, the political blog edition.
Readers will recall that my partner and I offered to buy the broadcast assets of Canwest Global in this space a few days ago.
Our offer was $1 Canadian, or its equivalent in U.S. currency (judging from the prime-time lineup, probably the preferred form of payment).
A progress report:
--- A remarkable over-the-counter market has developed in shares of Tigger Productions LLP, the purchasing entity. Interest is high; this equity opportunity is heavily over-subscribed.
My partner and I have therefore agreed to release 49 per cent of our needed capital to the marketplace, and we have allocated shares in this unique opportunity proportionately to the tenders (the average placement is 3.859 cents Canadian).
--- Our counsel are engaged in preliminary discussions with the current owners. My partner, who is overseeing this detail, reports optimism on our team that our offer to purchase will close quickly.
And now, a new Canwest opportunity has emerged for our firm and our community of investors.
The National Post is being re-merged with the rest of Canwest's newspaper properties, which are in turn being segregated from the broadcast assets.
Like the broadcast bits, the print entity will then apparently go into bankruptcy protection.
And so, we are pleased to announce that we are offering an additional $1 Canadian for the National Post and Canwest's other newspaper properties.
Things we will do, once the detail of having this offer accepted is accomplished:
--- Keep the bright, enthusiastic young reporters and the headroom to report thoughtfully and in detail on the news.
One of the nice things about the fact that the early National Post didn't have any ads was that reporters had to write lots of stories, and long ones.
Further, as a new outfit they did something very unusual in today's news business -- they hired a lot of new people.
They were therefore an energetic, friendly and needy bunch of reporters to talk to (I spoke to them a lot during the mid to late 1990s, because of my then-boss' extended period as chair of the provincial premiers' conference).
They were curious about what we were up to; asked lots of detailed questions; and most of what you told them ended up (more or less) in the paper. Who knew you could do that?
Keep that.
Things we won't keep:
--- I cancelled my National Post subscription the week the editors of that paper cranked up their campaign to free Augusto Pinochet from a Spanish court, set to try him on multiple charges.
It was the final straw in the American republicanization of that paper -- so painfully reflected in its editorial and opinion pages. I like reading Conrad Black. But all of his Manhattan, Georgetown and Florida friends, not so much.
As a subscriber I could only cast one vote against the decidedly minority views of the paper's quirky founding publisher and his successors. It would seem substantially all other Canadians did the same.
To put it another way, one thing the Post always made very clear was its faith in the market, which has now passed its judgment on their views.
But as owners and publishers, my partner and I can make a decisive difference for the better.
Business updates will be posted here as they occur.
Who knows? If we pull this off, perhaps my partner and I can even get ourselves named to the British House of Lords.
(Disclosures: "Tigger Productions LLP" is a jointly-owned entity. Its 51-cent majority share capital is currently owned in a pooled partnership by Topp, Brian and The Cat, Tigger).
