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The $400 million merger of Southern Cross Media Group (ASX: SXL) and Seven West Media (ASX: SWM) has been finalised today along with major changes to the board and leadership team, led by Seven’s boss Jeff Howard assuming the role of CEO and managing director of the combined group.
Howard, who steps into the position on a base salary of $1.25 million and potential to earn as much as $3.75 million, will be joined by a host of Seven West Media faces on the Southern Cross board, including Kerry Stokes as interim chair and Ryan Stokes as non-executive director.
Seven’s Michael Malone and Teresa Dyson will sit alongside Southern Cross board members Heith Mackay-Cruise, Marina Go and Ido Leffler as non-executive directors of the new board.
Former Southern Cross CEO John Kelly has stepped down from the company’s board to assume the role of managing director of the Audio division which includes the Hit and Triple M radio networks and the LiSTNR app – the main business units for Southern Cross prior to the merger.
However, with the buyout now completed, Seven West Media’s CFO Craig Haskins has announced plans to retire sometime in the current quarter.
Southern Cross Media says that while it undertakes a search for a new CFO, the company’s existing CFO Toby Potter will fill the position on an interim basis.
The merger of Southern Cross Media and Seven West Media secured overwhelming support from shareholders last month after the deal was first announced in September.
The scrip-based merger has created an integrated media company comprising free-to-air television, streaming, audio, digital and publishing assets across metropolitan and regional Australia - with the Seven Network alone reaching about 17.5 million people a month.
Apart from the Seven Network, Seven West Media brings to the group the 7plus digital platform, The West Australian and The Sunday Times newspapers, and the regional Community Newspapers Group.
The merger is expected to initially deliver pre-tax synergies of between $25 million and $30 million within 18 to 24 months of completion.
As previously disclosed, media baron Kerry Stokes, who was chair of Seven West Media prior to the merger, is planning to step down from the board at the end of February, with Mackay-Cruise set to step in as chair of the merged group. Malone will also step down as a director at the end of February.
Shares in Seven West Media, which were suspended from quotation on Christmas Eve last year, will disappear from the ASX at the end of trading today.
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