The Financial Mail editorship is up for grabs, but no formal offers have yet been made, reports Mungo Soggot
BUSINESS REPORT editor Peter Bruce has emerged as a contender for the editorship of the Financial Mail (FM), which lost Nigel Bruce in the the dramatic takeover of Finance Week by former FM editor at large, David Gleason.
Several media sources said Peter Bruce has indicated he is in the running for the job. Bruce would not comment.
However, it is understood that no formal offer has been made to Bruce and that Times Media Limited (TML) is still assessing applications for the post.
Before joining Business Report last year Bruce was home news editor of London’s Financial Times, the owner of which, Pearson, is expected to buy 50% of TML’s FM and Business Day.
Another rumour is that Allan Greenblo, the former editor of Finance Week, is a possibility. But Greenblo said he had not applied for the job and did not intend to do so.
Equisec, the stockbroking firm that handled Gleason’s takeover of Finance Week, is a black empowerment initiative with trade union backers – a sweet irony, say media commentators, considering the conservative views held by Nigel Bruce.
Seventy percent of Equisec share capital is in the hands of the National Council of Trade Unions (Nactu), which has a Black Consciousness ideology, and the Federation of African Business and Consumer Services, which initiated the company.
Equisec was masterminded by stockbroker Ed Hern and Andy Schwartz, the former managing director of the now defunct Cape Investment Bank.
Nigel Bruce, who resigned as FM editor last week, told Beeld newspaper there would be no affirmative action at Finance Week. During his 11-year reign FM, Bruce nurtured what some have described as a special brand of “free market fundamentalism”.
He has also expressed concern about editorial independence following the takeover of TML by the National Empowerment Consortium.
Nactu secretary general Cunningham Ngcukana said Equisec was there to do business and not to promote affirmative action “willy- nilly”.
Gleason refused to comment on why he had repeatedly denied involvement in negotiations to buy Finance Week, saying Gleason Publications was a private company and he did not want to parade his personal views.
He also refused to disclose the identity of his backers, despite having championed corporate transparency.
Finance Week, which Gleason bought from jailed foreign exchange fugitive Oliver Hill, lost R2-million in the last financial year and it is estimated it will cost about R8-million to recapitalise it, exclusive of the R4-million Gleason is believed to have paid for it.
Gleason refused to say whether he would approach former TML boss Stephen Mulholland to join his company as chairman