Former Domain Group boss Antony Catalano is believed to be threatening to derail the takeover of Prime Media Group by Seven West Media.
Mr Catalano’s backer, Thorney Investments, holds just under 5 per cent of the regional broadcaster and is understood to have been an eager buyer to complement his regional newspaper business.
Insiders are highly doubtful his attempt later will succeed, saying Seven West has change of control rights that can block any buyer of Prime.
The top media executive was recently the buyer of Nine Entertainment’s regional newspaper portfolio, which it had inherited through its Fairfax Media acquisition.
With backing from Alex Waislitz’s Thorney Investment Group, he had spent $125m for the mastheads, which includes The Canberra Times and The Newcastle Herald in April.
It is understood that Mr Catalano sees synergies in bringing regional television and newspapers together.
Anchorage Capital Partners was an underbidder for the Nine Entertainment regional newspaper division, and DataRoom can reveal that the private equity firm had been teaming up with James Warburton and CVC to buy Prime before Mr Warburton was hired as the chief executive of Seven West Media.
Mr Warburton’s plan to for Seven West to buy Prime was exclusively revealed by The Australian’s DataRoom column on October 4.
Mr Catalano embarked on a similar move with the merger between Nine and Fairfax, amassing shares in the publisher of The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review in an effort to stop the deal. But his attempts proved to be unsuccessful.
Mr Catalano spent 26 years with Fairfax and was chief executive of Domain for four years, leading the property classifieds business through its 2017 spin-off from Fairfax into a separately listed business.
He quit in January last year and failed in a last-ditch attempt in Federal Court to prevent the merger between Fairfax and Nine by buying a blocking stake in the old newspaper publisher.
Following the completion of the Fairfax merger on December 7, Nine flagged the sale of ACM, plus its events business, which produces the annual City2Surf running race in Sydney, and New Zealand division Stuff.
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