A businessman who now owns the biggest share in Johnston Press has accused the publisher of “rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic” following the announcement of chief executive Ashley Highfield’s departure.
Christen Ager-Hanssen, whose Custos Group investment vehicle owns 20pc of the regional publisher, has revealed he intends to increase his holding to 29.9pc ahead of its annual general meeting next month.
But while Christen welcomed Ashley’s decision to step down as CEO, he was dismissive of the board reshuffle which will see chief financial officer David King take on the role after the AGM.
Ashley announced he was standing down for “family reasons” last week after six and a half years as chief executive.
Christen told HTFP: “I’m very happy that the board have taken our view on the situation with Highfield. He was a disaster for the company.
“Let’s hope we now can move forward and sort out the mess he created in Johnston Press plc.”
Taking aim at the board, Christen added: “The board is doing no more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. They literally have no clue as to how create shareholder value.
“They do not understand the concept of monetisation of audience in the digital age. They have no credible strategy. Period.”
Christen had previously assembled a team touted to take control of the board, which would have seen former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond become chairman and ex-Local World boss Steve Auckland become chief executive.
However, he abandoned those plans in March in favour of what he described as a “wait and see” strategy.
Christen’s new plan to acquire a 29.9pc shareholding in the publisher falls short of a full takeover, which he would be ogliged to launch should his stake cross the 30pc threshold.
When asked by HTFP whether plans were afoot for a takeover bid, he responded: “The only plan we have is to increase to 29.9pc.”
Johnston Press has declined to comment.
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It’s funny isn’t it. Sometimes comments on here get dismissed especially when someone in a higher position from publishers come on to comment. Then you read the above from an experienced business man saying exactly the same thing.
The ignorance and self proclamation at the top of some of these publishers is truly sickening. But I’m sure we’ve all seen the utter rubbish in person many times
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Read this again – this is Highfield’s reign in a nutshell – make the products poorer/thinner/dearer (newspapers) while putting all content on internet for free:
“He (Highfield) was a disaster for the company… sort out the mess he created in Johnston Press plc
“The board is doing no more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. They literally have no clue as to how create shareholder value.
“They do not understand the concept of monetisation of audience in the digital age. They have no credible strategy. Period.”
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Any news on refinancing the debt? Who will replace Ashers longer term? Who will oversee the digital side now that supremo Jeff has gone?
Time for Christen to step up and tell us how he sees it going from here.
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It is going to take a cute operator to cure this ailing patient of its ills. I hope for the sake of the overworked staff still with JP they can succeed.
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I’m with FormerLoyalFollower when it comes to those from the managerial level , I use the term loosely, belittling and knockingthe comments of the many HTFP commenters who can see through the BS and company line and give their own view based on experience.
Too many times a defender of the policies they’ve likely had a hand in and which will do nothing but long term damage for short term cost savings will mock a view or call those with enough intelligence and foresight ‘keyboard warriors’ or ‘ bitter ex journos’ particularly when a nerve has been hit or the tiff being trotted out can be seen for what it is.
At last it seems someone on the board of a major regional publisher has enough sense and clout to take control and rid the industry of the parasites and self servers who’ve done so much damage to a once proud workforce ( I’m not just talking JP here) so I for one wish him nothing but success.
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Just read up about this chap online and, well, erm, good luck kids!
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It will be interesting to see his proposals for monetising the digital audience given Facebook and Google’s dominance. Many have tried – very few have experienced even mild success. That’s the bigger issue than whether Ashley Highfield has succeeded or failed.
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So JP refused to comment. Did the NUJ refuse to comment too? The union represents many JP journalists. Or didn’t HTFP bother to ask for one – as usual.
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Peter Lazenby – As a member of the NUJ, I’m couldn’t care less about their views on this. Good luck to Christen Ager-Hanssen, JP needs someone to kick the board into shape.
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I’m not sure Agger Hansen will do any better than Ashley if he is intent on chasing the digital dragon. Making digital pay is next to impossible. Especially for local weekly papers. What self respecting business is going to dig ad on a screen the size of a phone competing with ad blockers and copy space. Its just not going to happen. Local weekly papers should be quality products filled with local news and photos. Ashley tried to fix it when it wasn’t broken. This is real life, not the movie ‘Anon’. Get back to quality journalism and photography. Put out good products. Not sure Agger Hansen (AH same as Ashley Highfield) will do that.
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I would love to know when the digital deniers of the HTFP comments section last bought a newspaper.
I can’t even remember the last time I bought one but I do remember it was for the crossword, having already read the stories online.
You might think journalists should put their money where their mouth is and buy local papers, but every journalist in the country buying a paper every day won’t stop the inevitable.
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Yorkshire Hack – without being a digital denier, I think most people’s concern on here is how once-thriving businesses have been run into the ground by headless-chicken management who apparently don’t know what they are doing. I don’t think this is a print v digi argument. It’s about large companies, for instance, spending significant sums of money to change their names while taking a buzzsaw to their staffing levels. It’s about daft decisions to let print – still making the bulk of the profits – be hustled to an early grave, rather than a dignified passing, by under resourcing it. It’s about management’s dawning (belatedly) realisation that they are so far being the times where digital is concerned they are never going to catch up.
The good old days of print are gone. The ‘new’ days of the digital age are being seriously screwed up.
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Sorry – typo: it should be: so far behind the times’.
Apologies.
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Agree with Echo’s comments but the main thing bugging me is why a successful businessman like Hansen would be the slightest bit interested in JP. He hasn’t gone away, has he? Everyone else seems to see them as a lame duck bobbing away in the Dead Sea, but here he is actually increasing his shareholding to just below the threshold for a takeover. Does he know, or see, something that is eluding the rest of us?
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@echoandthebunnymen is spot on. 90%+ of the negative comments on here are not an argument against digital. It’s in regards to poor management decisions that are not exclusive to this.
We saw it for years in print when publishers had a monopoly so got away with it. That’s not the case now and neither digital or print is strong enough to support bad management.
Print was milked for years and the genesis of digital should have begun being developed well over 10 years ago. They’re now playing catch up but having to destroy the very resources of quality journalism via reduncies and cut backs which in turn creates an awful product aimed at easy money with minimum effort and even more minimal quality.
There’s nothing ground breaking or unique about what is being put out so the people who had the forcite to get in years ago control the markets. Name changes and company changes will do absolutely nothing. Find a quality niche, give the new customers what they want and develop it from there. Give people the same thing they can find in 100 other ways without pop ups, dodgy page loading, poor video quality and no enthusiasm then prepare for further job cuts and in turn quality cuts because digital alone will not support the size of the big publishers and their infrastructures.
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Mr Hanssen is correct in what he has said the remaining board are just the same as AH was just number crunchers. The company has lost its identity thanks to AH . Change is needed Mr Hanssen is the msn to bring change…
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