The Asper family's role in CanWest Global Communications Corp. continues to wane, as two of Izzy Asper's children, Gail Asper and David Asper, resigned from the board of directors.
Their brother, CanWest chief executive officer Leonard Asper, is the last sibling with a major role in the media conglomerate founded by their father. The resignations are part of a process intended to reduce the size of the board as CanWest undergoes restructuring. Leonard, who took the reins from his father in 1999, will stay on as CEO and a director. (Izzy Asper died in 2003.)
It is common for companies in creditor protection to see changes in their board structure. "You have the oversight of the monitor, plus the chief restructuring officer, plus the courts ... clearly the amount of heavy lifting and oversight work that has to be done, parts of it are taken over by other entities," CanWest spokesman John Douglas said.
"You have board members that see it right through to creditor protection and say, 'That heavy lifting is over and it's time to move on.' "
Board member Lisa Pankratz, president of Mackenzie Cundill Investment Management Ltd., also resigned yesterday. None of the three director positions will be filled. Another director, Frank King, resigned in January.
The Winnipeg-based company filed for court protection from its creditors last October, after missing interest payments on its nearly $4-billion debt. CanWest's newspaper subsidiary filed separately under the Companies Creditors' Arrangement Act (CCAA) in January, kicking off the largest auction of media assets in Canadian history.
In a statement yesterday, chairman of the board at CanWest, Derek Burney, thanked the three departing board members, and focused on the two siblings' "decades of leadership and dedication to the vision that built CanWest."
Gail Asper, a lawyer, joined CanWest in 1989 and has been a member of the board since 1992. She remains the president of the charitable Asper Foundation. David Asper is also a lawyer and a law professor at the University of Manitoba. He joined the company in 1992 and has been on the board since 1997.
Both will contribute to the restructuring process in a consulting role for up to six months or until the company emerges from CCAA protection.
With files from Grant Robertson