Ron Walker says he will resign from Fairfax Media board if shareholders tell him to go

Fairfax Media chairman Ron Walker has signalled he is prepared to step down from the board at the company’s annual general meeting in November if the company’s institutional shareholders indicate his time is up.

“If shareholders say to me, we would prefer you to go at the annual general meeting, I will go at the annual general meeting without any doubt,” Walker told The Australian Financial Review.

“I don’t have an ownership on this job and I leave it to the judgement of others,” he said.

Walker’s willingness to walk could bring to an end a bitter dispute that has divided the company’s board in recent days.

Early last week, Walker said an interview that he would resign as chairman in 2010, despite the fact his position has been under pressure since last year.

But this interview infuriated Fairfax Media shareholder and board member John B Fairfax, who released an unusually angry statement calling for Walker to reign immediately.

But then five independent Fairfax directors – including former Woolworths chief Roger Corbett, who is seen as a candidate for the chairmanship – released their own statement backing Walker.

However, whether this completely heals the board’s rift is unclear. John B Fairfax is known to want the independent directors to conduct a global search for a new chairman. But while the directors are believed to be backing Corbett’s move to the chair, the Fairfax family faction is believed to have some reservations about his lack of media experience.

Walker described Corbett as a “great candidate”.

Amidst the turmoil, a number of former Fairfax staff have submitted nominations to join the Fairfax Media board.

The nominations include shareholder activist and Fairfax contributor Stephen Mayne, former publisher of The Age Steve Harris and a former editor of The Australian Financial Review, Gerard Noonan.

Writing in Crikey, Noonan said he wanted to “bring some sanity” to the Fairfax board.

“With quality journalism under deep stress – courtesy of technological change that has undermined the business model on which Fairfax’s particular brand of quality rests – the last thing the company needs is the latest display of corporate madness, more reminiscent of testosterone-fuelled activity of ageing bulls in the bottom paddock.”