Marks opens up on reports Gordon wants his head

Nine Entertainment chief executive Hugh Marks has addressed reports that WIN Corporation is trying to oust him.

Nine Entertainment chief executive Hugh Marks has addressed reports that the company’s major shareholder, WIN Corporation, is trying to oust him.

The Australian revealed WIN, controlled by Bermuda-based Bruce Gordon, had sounded out Nine’s institutional shareholders, including Perpetual, in a bid to drum up support to effect a board spill and install new management.

“I don’t really want to speculate on their plans — Bruce Gordon is very hard to predict and again we’re just focused on making sure we run the business as well as we possibly can,” Mr Marks told The Australian in his first public comments on the issue. “And if we do that then I expect that we will get support from all our shareholders.”

WIN and entities controlled by Mr Gordon own 14.99 per cent of Nine’s ordinary voting shares, as well as another 4.9 per cent economic interest via an equity derivative contract.

WIN is growing frustrated with the underperformance of the second-placed free-to-air network and would likely only need to galvanise the support of Perpetual, which owns 15.15 per cent of Nine, to mobilise enough votes to effect a board spill.

After Nine’s half-year result in February, the company met with WIN as part of its investor roadshow. Asked if he would meet with WIN after the company’s full-year result last week after the proposal to install new management at Nine was made public, Mr Marks said: “That would be something that we would be open to given that they’re a shareholder of the business.”

It is understood no meetings between Nine and WIN have been booked at this stage.

Relations between Mr Marks and WIN hit rock bottom this year when Nine was sued by its then affiliate partner after the metro network began streaming its content into regional markets. Nine then shunned WIN, terminating a 27-year relationship, to sign a new affiliate deal with Southern Cross. Nine insiders are convinced WIN is agitating because it is aggrieved about being ditched for Southern Cross and other past conflicts.

Asked if he believed WIN had any ulterior motives in its proposal, Mr Marks said: “I don’t know that he’s that happy about some stuff.

“I don’t know. Again I can’t predict or reach into the mind of other people. I just have to focus on what we can do as business.”

While Nine has had a disappointing year, the network won the key advertiser demographics — those aged 25-54, 18-49 and 16-39- last week, the first after Seven’s coverage of the Rio Olympic Games.

Seven won the ratings week for total people and will be keen to see its investment in the Olympics pay off as a launching pad for new programming.

Nine’s ratings performance in the six months to June has translated to a declining advertising revenue share for the network. Its hare of the metropolitan free-to-air ad market fell to 35.6 per cent in the six months to June, down from 38.6 per cent, according to the latest KPMG figures.

The start of the 2017 ratings year presents an ­opportunity to refresh the schedule and boost advertising demand, which is partly why Mr Marks has dragged forward programming presentations by four months.