Media company Ilkka organized a long-awaited extraordinary general meeting today. The general meeting concluded that the share series will not be combined. The general meeting also refrained from transferring the supreme decision-making power from the supervisory board to the general meeting.
The meeting discussed a proposal whose goal was to transfer board elections from Ilka’s supervisory board directly to the shareholders. The largest shareholders were behind the proposal Central Finland, Rebl Group mixed Mikko Laakkonen ML Stable.
The importance of the general meeting extended beyond routine matters, as it was a potential opportunity to unlock the hidden value of Ilka’s share.
If the power had been transferred to the general meeting, it could have appointed a board whose primary task would have been to maximize shareholder returns rather than maintaining the current power structure. Currently, most of Ilka’s value consists of those on its balance sheet, including the one that publishes Kauppalehtä Alma Median of shares.
Transferring power to the general meeting would have increased the probability that Ilkka would have sold his valuable Alma holdings and distributed the funds as dividends. In the eyes of the market, such a move would probably have increased Ilka’s share price.
Ilka has traditionally had a large number of small owners from Southern Pohja, for whom keeping the local media and decision-making power in their own hands has been more important than unlocking the potential for value growth. This has also been driven by one of the largest owners Southern Ostrobothnia Newspaper Society.
The supervisory board held its ground
However, the Supervisory Board had already announced at the end of October that it was opposed to transferring decision-making power to the general meeting. Differences of opinion among the owners were used as justification.
“Based on its investigative work, the board has considered that no conditions have been found for a wider reform of the company’s management model in the same context due to, among other things, scattered shareholder views,” the release explained.
The merger of the share series also did not take place, although the Supervisory Board also proposed it in October.
“The board of directors proposes to the extraordinary general meeting that the company’s share series be combined without increasing the share capital, so that the company’s articles of association regarding the different series of shares would be changed as described below, whereby each series I share would be changed to correspond to the current series II share,” the announcement stated.