Ex-first minister aims to make title more ‘pro-Scotland’ as part of bid for Johnston Press, which also owns Yorkshire Post

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond has joined an activist investor seeking to oust the board and chief executive of Johnston Press, owner of titles including the Scotsman and national newspaper i.

Salmond, who lost his Gordon seat in the last general election, has teamed up with Christen Ager-Hanssen, the struggling newspaper publisher’s largest investor, who is looking to take control.

The former SNP leader said he would not seek to have editorial control of the Scotsman, which opposed Scottish independence, but he would like it to become more “pro-Scotland”.

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“Under our plan the Yorkshire Post will be pro-Yorkshire, the Scotsman pro-Scotland, and the i trusted everywhere for the quality and accessibility of the information it provides,” he said.

“The Johnston Group has some great titles and some great people. What it needs is a senior management team to match that commitment.”

Under the plans Salmond, who has reportedly been seeking involvement with an unnamed consortium to buy the Scotsman, would become the new chairman of Johnston Press.

Salmond said Johnston Press had been a “constant part of my life”; his first job was as a “junior agent” selling copies of the Edinburgh Evening News, his first published work was a letter in the JP-owned Linlithgow Gazette. He also said he counts former Scotsman editor Alastair Dunnett as “one of my greatest friends and mentors”.



Ager-Hanssen, who this week is expected to call a meeting to seek to remove the incumbent chairman, Camilla Rhodes, said he will also shift Johnston Press’s headquarters out of London and back to its historic home in Scotland.

He is also advocating that a third of the board meetings be held in Yorkshire to “ensure that the regional strength of the company is reinforced together with its heritage, values and purpose”.

Under the plan Johnston Press’s chief executive, former BBC and Microsoft executive Ashley Highfield, would be replaced by Steve Auckland, who has run titles including Metro and Evgeny Lebedev’s Evening Standard and Independent.

“Alex, Steve and I are agreed on the direction we need to take to save Johnston Press, reinvigorate staff and transform the company into a digital media powerhouse,” said Ager-Hanssen, who owns the Swedish version of Metro. “Central to our vision are the interests of shareholders, staff, pensioners and the communities who trust and rely on the Johnston Press titles.”

In 2009, Salmond gave his blessing to a consortium involving Martin Gilbert, the then chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management, Edinburgh financier Ben Thomson and property developer Mark Shaw to try to acquire the daily.

In the 2014 Scottish independence referendum the Scotsman backed a “no” vote. However, Frank O’Donnell, who was appointed as editor in April, has since said the title will take a neutral stance on independent and party politics.

“We are not going to support any particular political party in any referendum or election,” he said in an interview with Press Gazette last month. “I think a quality readership wants to read a variety of views. I don’t want people to think that the stance we’ve taken is because of the colour of a rosette. We are resolutely pro-Scottish but not pro any political party.”

Johnston Press is struggling under a debt burden of £220m that it must seek to refinance or restructure by 2019 or fall into the hands of its lenders.



“A significant amount of work is being done on the strategic review of financing options and we are pleased with progress to date,” said Highfield.