Prime chairman John Hartigan retires on Thursday.Credit:Angela Wylie
"One of the people I ran into the other day likened it to a couple of billionaire elephants scrapping around for effectively peanuts because if you look at our market cap,it’s in the mid-$60 million,"Mr Hartigan said after shareholders voted 53.5 per cent against the deal at the Hilton in Sydney.
"If you look at the vote,77 per cent of the proxies that we received before the meeting,the majority of the vote if you exclude Gordon and Catalano supported the deal,"he said. That showed the pair was"out of tune with the missions of the majority of our shareholders",he added.
"I’m hugely disappointed,I think it’s a dreadful shame for a company that two big shareholders running their own agendas that aren’t aligned in any way with the majority of shareholders on our register have used this company as a plaything."
Today was to be a life raft for us,and two shareholders have hijacked that opportunity.
Prime chairman John Hartigan
Prime is the regional affiliate for Seven content. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission gave the green light to a merger of the two on Wednesday. Mr Gordon is a major shareholder in Seven rival Nine Entertainment Co,the owner of this masthead.
"As far as we’re concerned Seven has been our partner for a very long time,we will stay very engaged with them. We will continue to pursue every aspect of presenting this deal back to shareholders in some form. We’re committed to it,"Mr Hartigan said.
"We're not going to shy away from what's best for the company because of a couple of bullies,"he said.