In an early January settlement to a long court battle, the minority owners of Shaw Media were bought out of their 35% ownership stake for $5.25 million,
Crain’s Chicago Business
reported.
The settlement was reached on the day the trial was to have begun, the report noted.
The minority owners included brothers William and Robert Shaw, who had been publishers of two of the Dixon, Ill., company’s newspapers, the article said. They sued their relative J. Peter Morgan Shaw, contending that “a trust that holds the newspaper assets on behalf of all family members should have sold some newspapers years ago to diversify trust assets,” the article said.
Family members who own the other 65% stake, including Shaw Media CEO Tom Shaw, sided with Peter Shaw, who is Tom Shaw’s son, the article said.
The minority owners are continuing to pursue litigation against Northern Trust Corp. “over what they allege is its failure as trustee for more than two decades before Peter Shaw took over in 2009 to press for diversification of the trust’s assets so that its sole interests weren’t in newspapers,”
Crain’s
reported. They are seeking up to $20 million from Northern Trust, the article said.
A lawyer for Northern Trust “argued in his opening statement that certain tax considerations played a major role in the bank’s proper guidance of the trust,” the article said. (Source:
Crain’s Chicago Business,
Jan. 8, 2014.)
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