Mogul’s challenge delays CBS’s Ten takeover meeting
A last-minute legal challenge by media mogul Bruce Gordon over rival US media giant CBS’s attempt to take control of the embattled Network Ten has bought him an extra week before the next creditors meeting.
Ten’s billionaire shareholders Gordon and Lachlan Murdoch were in August given the regulatory all-clear to launch a joint takeover of the free-to-air network, only to be outbid by CBS days later.
Ten’s regional affiliate WIN, which is majority owned by Gordon, made an urgent application to the NSW Supreme Court on Wednesday over Ten’s administrators holding a second creditors meeting scheduled for September 12.
On Thursday Richard McHugh, SC, appearing for the administrators, initially said the meeting should go ahead as planned.
“It is urgent from the point of view of the company”, which is losing money, he said.
He said the plaintiffs – including WIN and Gordon’s private company Birketu – “should not be given a free run to have the meeting delayed to advance their commercial interests.”
“My client expects ultimately that the application will fail,” he said.
But the administrators agreed, along with defendants CBS, to defer the creditors meeting until September 19 so the matter can be heard in court next week.
Justice Ashley Black said the case will be listed for hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday.
– AAP
