Independent News & Media (INM) and investment management firm Allan Gray, which together control about 51% of the company, forced Brett Chenoweth to fall on his sword.

They have also secured the resignations of chairman Peter Hunt and independent directors Melinda Conrad, John Harvey, John Maasland and Kevin Luscombe.

All six resigned yesterday afternoon with immediate effect, except for Luscombe, who will retire in April as originally planned.

The issue in dispute was the board's determination to push ahead with a capital raising, despite INM and Allan Gray "unequivocally" opposing it "at the present time".

"The departing directors have a different view on gearing levels to the major shareholders and in light of their opposing position it is not tenable for them to continue," said APN.

"While the board agreed the company needed to reduce its debt, it was unable to agree on the methodology."

[Related: APN makes $485m write-off]

The departing directors wanted the capital raising to be done when APN announced its results on 21 February. "This would have been in conjunction with a continued focus on repositioning the publishing businesses and potential asset sales," added APN.

However, the major shareholders believed the capital raising should have been delayed to allow "other options to be pursued".

Allan Gray told The Australian yesterday that the capital raising was "putting the cart before the horse… The important thing to do is turn the business around and get it fixed."

INM announced last week that it had lost confidence in Chenoweth’s ability to make the strategic changes necessary to succeed in "the more challenged media landscape".

"Notwithstanding its market leading positions, APN has underperformed as evidenced by a near-halving of APN’s interim profits in the period from H1 2010 to H1 2012."

Meanwhile, APN's regional media division will outsource some of its pre-press work as part of a restructure of its ad services.

"The change will result in 12 redundancies that will take effect on 5 April 2013.  Applications for voluntary redundancy have been invited and will be accommodated where possible," said APN.

[Related: More news about newspapers]

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