Vancouver: WIC Western International Communications is downplaying escalating rumors that Emily Griffiths, matriarch of the Vancouver-based company, has decided to sell her controlling interest in the broadcasting giant, thereby liquidating the business empire founded by her late husband Frank Griffiths, Sr.

Terry O’Donovan, wic spokesman, says the hype and speculation about the broadcaster being on the block ‘is a predictable pattern ahead of the agm.’

‘There is no substance to the speculation, just as there was no substance to the speculation last year at this time. We have a controlling shareholder who has not indicated any intention of selling the company.’

wic’s financial performance will be reviewed at the annual general meeting held this year on Jan. 22 at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

Toronto-based Yorkton Securities analyst Megan Anderson says: ‘Obviously, investors would always be interested in [Griffiths] selling or there being a change in the company. There is a takeover premium now. But whether the company goes into play depends on the legal construct. It’s not clear whether [the potential sale] is something formally being done or something that is always being looked at.’

The impact of the sale of Mrs. Griffith’s shares in the company is complicated. But the most likely scenario is that it would trigger so-called ‘coattail provisions’ and convert non-voting B-class shares into voting shares, and thereby changing controlling ownership of the company.

If the sale is, in fact, underway, the most obvious suitor is CanWest, which has tripled in the past year its investment in wic’s non-voting shares with an overall investment of about $150 million. With about 7.3 million or 30% of the non-voting shares, CanWest has nearly five times the equity of Emily Griffiths, who has 62% of the voting a-class shares and nearly one million b-class shares.

Other wic bidders noted in the Vancouver media include Vancouver industrialist Jimmy Pattison and Shaw Cable.