EMAP shareholders may try to scupper the sale of the media group’s radio and magazine divisions after its auction of assets fell short of expectations.

A number are considering voting against the £1.14 billion disposal of Heat, Grazia and Kiss FM to Germany’s Bauer at the extraordinary meeting in January in protest at chairman Alun Cathcart’s failure to find a home for its exhibitions and information arm.

One investor said: “If they think this has been successful, then we have a different view.”

He added: “This has got to be approved. If we start talking to all the other shareholders we have got to think about whether we vote this thing down.”

Credit-ratings agencies were also bearish on the result, which will lead to £1 billion, or 460p a share, being returned. Fitch down-graded the rating on Emap’s senior unsecured debt to BBB-.

Cathcart hit back, saying: “Shareholders have every right to vote it down or accept it, depending on how they feel. I am confident we will get it through.”

His supporters concede an auction would have been easier to conclude if it had been kicked off when Cathcart first ousted chief executive Tom Moloney in May.

The deal would mean the end of the Emap brand, which can trace its roots back 60 years. The company started life as a local-newspaper group, the East Midlands Allied Press, but must stop using the name as a condition of the sale to Bauer, owner of Take a Break and Bella.

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