Swoop leaves publisher in limbo

Friday 6th July 2001

By Jock Anderson

Questions over the future of publisher and Wilson Neill managing director Tim Connell may be answered next week after a face to face with shock new-chum raider Transram Group, which now owns half the hospitality and technology company.

Mr Connell - who sold his IT Media company to Wilson Neill in March in exchange for 30% of the public unlisted company's shares - this week said he could not comment on whether he had quit or intended to quit the Wilson Neill board.

He said he could not comment on his position until after a meeting with the new Wilson Neill shareholders planned for Wednesday or Thursday in Auckland.

"It's really their decision," Mr Connell, who publishes New Zealand Business Times, said.

Transram is a special purpose company - incorporated on June 19 - whose crafty hooking of a little more than 50% of Wilson Neill just before the Takeovers Code came into force on July 1 was described by Wilson Neill chairman Trevor Mason as "a bolt from the blue."

Transram is jointly owned by Panamanian-based WeCU and one-year-old Hamilton-registered Genesis International Charitable Trust.

In February WeCU acquired a 27% stake in Wilson Neill subsidiary Radionet for $17.5 million with an option to increase its holding to 50% for a further $20 million over the next two years.

Genesis trustee Mark Dent said the Wilson Neill purchase was a long-term investment. Other Genesis trustees are Alan Merrie and Terry Buxton.

Mr Dent said Mr Connell had to decide which side of the fence he was on - "I don't know how he will fit in or if he wants to - it's over to him."

"We can't say what we are going to do with the company until we have told the board," Mr Dent said.

"There are still about 8000 shareholders who have to be looked after as well."

Mr Dent said there were "some pretty exciting plans" that involved using Radionet as a test site for rest of the world.

"WeCU is global and all we are doing is using New Zealand as a base for it," he said.

According to its trust deed, Genesis International - founded on anonymous donations totalling $100 and with a Christian leaning - lists among its many charitable purposes the acquisition of property, and the promotion of such causes as education, scholarships, youth camps, training, telecommunications services and the support of soup kitchens.

WeCU's Auckland-based Asia Pacific managing director Russell Kerr said meetings had been held with Mr Connell and "he seems reasonably happy."

He said whether Mr Connell stayed as a director would depend on discussions between the directors of Trans-ram and Wilson Neill about what the structure of a potential new board might look like.

Mr Kerr said WeCU's chief executive Shaun Okun would be on the board of Transram and possibly Wilson Neill.

When Mr Connell sold his IT Media business to Wilson Neill in March in return for 30% shareholding and the job as managing director he exercised his new clout by talking about a board cleanout in a bid to rehabilitate Wilson Neill's damaged image.

He was clearly looking forward to capitalising on the strong synergies between his internet, magazine and television lifestyle and business content and the ISP provision of Radionet.

But in May the publisher of fledgling New Zealand Business Times said he was stepping down to concentrate on Wilson Neill - described as "troubled."

Mr Connell said this week he had been talking to a number of parties - "other media as well as the Independent" - about a possible joint venture. "They're not the people we are talking to, really. We are in discussions with other people and it's not the Independent." He declined to be specific.

The National Business Review publisher Barry Colman said Mr Connell had made no approach to him. "Such an approach would be in vain because NBR is not on the market," Mr Colman said.

Last month three of four Wilson Neill directors - chairman Trevor John Mason, Dianne Lesley Giles and Paul Hyslop - charged with breaching the Companies Act in relation to share transaction certificates - indicated they would plead guilty. A fourth director, Ioin Malcolm Millar Johnson, has not yet indicated a plea.

Their case - involving 59 charges for which the maximum penalty totals $590,000 - is expected to be called again in the Dunedin district court on Thursday.

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