(Bloomberg) — Amber Capital founder Joseph Oughourlian won control of Spain’s most influential media group after a shareholder activism campaign a decade ago. Now he’s the one fighting off an ouster.
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Oughourlian, a French hedge fund manager based in London, is clashing with pro-government Spanish businessmen that want him out of media company Promotora de Informaciones SA, owner of El Pais, the country’s best-known newspaper. They’re angry, in part, after his relations with the ruling Socialist party unraveled and he blocked the plan for a new pro-government TV station.
The fight over the media firm, known as Prisa, pits a hedge fund manager backed by French billionaire Vincent Bollore against Spain’s political establishment in a test of foreign ownership of media assets. It’s also rapidly emerging as the nation’s highest profile corporate drama since drugmaker Grifols SA came under pressure from short seller Gotham City Research last year.
Oughourlian has built a near 30% stake in Prisa since first calling for changes in 2015, the maximum allowed before he must make a takeover offer. The shareholder group which now opposes him has as its de facto leader Jose Miguel Contreras, a television producer and a former Prisa head of content and architect of the TV channel idea. The group holds nearly 19%.
The two sides are now embroiled in a struggle to win over other investors before a general meeting of shareholders due by the end of June, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Bollore’s Vivendi SE is Prisa’s second biggest investor and key to both parties. Oughourlian is seeking to guarantee the French tycoon’s continued support and is lobbying other key shareholders, the people said, asking not to be identified as deliberations are private. The shareholder group’s strategy includes attempting to leverage the relationship state-backed Telefonica SA has as a client with Havas, Bollore’s advertising business, the people said.
Representatives for Amber, Prisa and the shareholder group declined to comment.
French newspaper Le Point reported earlier this month that Spain’s Digital Affairs Minister Oscar Lopez — Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s former Cabinet chief and key lieutenant of his media strategy — and Telefonica Chairman Marc Murtra met in Paris with Vivendi’s CEO to discuss the Prisa stake last month. Spain owns 10% in Telefonica. Lopez has denied that the meeting was related to Prisa.
Shareholder Fight
The shareholder fight taps deep into the spiritual heart of a company which for decades was a reliable pillar of support for Sanchez’s Socialist party and which also owns the nation’s biggest radio station.
For a while, Oughourlian and the Socialists were aligned. In 2018, they were in agreement on ousting Juan Cebrian, a former Prisa chief who had taken an aggressive stance against Sanchez.
But then relations began souring around the time of the last general election in 2023, amid rumors that Oughourlian had been building bridges with the opposition.
Fast forward to this year and relations unraveled rapidly. Carlos Nunez, head of Prisa’s media operations, told El Pais in February that a project to launch a pro-government broadcaster was underway and a shareholder group would fund 70% of it. The company, he said, would foot the rest.
By then Oughourlian had started mistrusting Nunez, who he’d hired but had come to see as too close to the pro-government camp, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Days later, Nunez was said to be shocked when Prisa’s board rejected the idea after his presentation. The next day, Oughourlian gave an interview to a rival newspaper, saying the idea made no sense and that the position of executives supporting it needed revising.
Within hours, Nunez stepped down. Contreras was removed soon after. The rejection of the TV proposal was surprising because Nunez, Oughourlian and other executives had discussed the idea before Nunez’ interview, the people said.
Financial Investor
Those opposing Oughourlian say that Spain’s most iconic media group cannot be run by a foreign financial investor, according to people familiar with the matter.
The media fight isn’t the first Oughourlian has waged in his hedge fund career. In mid-2017, Amber called for changes to top management and a greater focus on costs at Mediaset SpA, after building a stake in the company owned at the time by Silvio Berlusconi. In 2021, Amber also ended a years-long campaign at French publisher Lagardere when Vivendi agreed to buy its stake in the firm.
The Prisa saga is complicated by the firm’s €800 million debt pile. It’s struggled for years to reduce borrowing and Oughourlian is currently working with creditors, including Pimco, to refinance maturities due next year.
He’s said to be working to include a so-called “key-man” clause that would ensure debt terms change if he isn’t around any longer as a poison pill strategy to protect against his ouster. Also under discussion is a capital increase, Bloomberg reported late on Friday.
Both sides are also courting other large shareholders, including Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and Banco Santander, which so far haven’t backed either of the two groups.
Meanwhile, the fight is intensifying in the run up to the June meeting. On March 16 Prisa announced that Oughourlian would also take over as chairman of El Pais.
The next day he published an op-ed in which he said that attempts to take over control of the paper are reminiscent of the days of Franco, a particularly pointed reference as the 50th anniversary of the dictator’s death looms.
Oughourlian may have another card. Last year Prisa issued convertible bonds, with large shareholders taking a large part. A significant portion still haven’t been converted into shares and the pro-government group is concerned he or an ally may hold a large part, people familiar said.
–With assistance from Clara Hernanz Lizarraga and Daniel Basteiro.
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