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CONRAD'S BLACK EYE / By TIM ARANGO / NY POST

November 15, 2003 -- Newspaper baron Conrad Black's Hollinger has filed false financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission - a disclosure that could trigger an SEC investigation and increase pressure on Black to step down.

The company was due to file its quarterly report yesterday but instead filed for a three-day extension as it tries to clean up its books.

The inaccuracies, the company said, stem from the amount of money in non-compete fees Hollinger reported from a deal in 2000 to sell most of the company's Canadian newspapers to CanWest.

As part of that deal, as previously reported, Black and his top executives personally received roughly $50 million in fees, raising the ire of shareholders, who noted that typically such fees go to the company's coffers.

The company's disclosure yesterday indicates those payments could be higher.

The company filed a brief statement with the SEC saying "there are inaccuracies in prior public filings of the company involving the amount, authorization and purpose of such payments, among other things."

"It's unbelievable," said one Hollinger investor. "This should spark an SEC investigation."

In June, the company announced that it had formed a special committee to investigate allegations of financial shenanigans raised by shareholders, including compensation for Black and other top executives.

The probe, headed by former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden, is not expected to be completed until early next year.

Black has defended the payments, saying they were initiated by the papers' new owners and subsequently approved by Hollinger International's audit committee.

One of the audit committee members, Marie-Josee Kravis, the wife of billionaire financier Henry Kravis, resigned Oct. 6. Sources said her resignation was related to ongoing problems at the company, but Black said she left because her husband's firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, was bidding for a rival newspaper company.

U.S. financier Nelson Peltz said negotiating to take over Black's Hollinger
Tue Nov 11, 9:03 PM ET

LONDON (CP) - American financier Nelson Peltz is in negotiations to take control of Conrad Black's troubled Hollinger newspaper group, the Times reported Wednesday.

The newspaper quoted a Hollinger spokesman as saying there have been "no substantive talks," but it reported that Peltz "is understood to be conducting due diligence on the debt-laden newspaper publisher." It did not identify its sources. Peltz, said to be worth $950 million US, is chairman and CEO of Triarc, the company behind Arby's fast-food restaurants. In 2000, he sold Snapple to Cadbury Schweppes for just over one billion pounds, almost quintuple what he had paid Quaker Oats for the juice and tea company three years earlier.

Before Triarc, Peltz built Triangle Industries into the world's largest packaging company.

Peltz was not available for comment.

Hollinger International, assembled by the Canadian-born Black, now Lord Black of Crossharbour, is controlled through Toronto-based holding company Hollinger Inc. (TSX:HLG.C - news).

The group has been seeking private equity investments to meet a $92-million-Cdn debt payment next spring.

In addition to the Telegraph of London, Hollinger owns the Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post. Formerly Canada's largest newspaper proprietor, it sold the Southam media group to CanWest Global Communications and now owns only a few small Canadian publications.

Black has been under pressure to straighten out the company's finances, improve its share-price performance and upgrade its corporate governance.

Hollinger Inc. has been able to meet its interest payments only with help from Black's personal investment company, Ravelston Corp. However, Ravelston depends for much of its income on a management fee - $21.4 million US last year - paid by Hollinger International to Black and his associates.