Ed McCann has been appointed as managing editor of the Irish-based newspaper publisher, Independent News and Media (INM). He replaces Michael Denieffe, who is retiring after 45 years with the company.

McCann was deputy editor at INM’s Belfast Telegraph in a journalistic career that also spanned the Daily Mirror, Irish News and Andersonstown News. He was also previously associate editor with the Irish Independent. He is 40.

Denieffe has filled several roles at INM, having been group news editor, editor of the Dublin Evening Herald, pre-press manager and IT director at INM.

The current group editor-in-chief, Stephen Rae, described Denieffe as “a legendary figure in the industry” and “a tremendous servant of INM over many decades”.

Sources: Irish Times/Irish Independent

Denis O’Brien to join board of $16bn telecoms fund

Denis O’Brien, who has a controlling interest in INM, is to join the advisory board of a new fund founded by Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman with plans to invest $16bn (£10.7bn) in the European telecoms market, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Aside from O’Brien, the founder of Digicel, the board of LetterOne Technology will also include Lastminute.com’s Brent Hoberman, Osama Bedier, a former Google payments executive, former Skype executive Russ Shaw and Sir Julian Horn-Smith, one of the founding team at Vodafone.

As the Irish Times points out, O’Brien has previously tried to buy Eircom, the former Irish state-owned telephone monopoly that remains the Republic’s largest telecommunications operator. O’Brien is thought to retain a desire to assume total control of the group.