Not long after its interest was out in the open, however, BSkyB bought a 18% blocking stake in the company.

FORBES

Branson had already been irked when Sky bought a 17.9% blocking stake in British commercial broadcaster ITV, effectively dashing any hopes he'd harbored for buying the company.

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That cosy relationship with Lower Saxony (whose blocking stake the European Commission is seeking to remove) might become a burden if VW needed to make swift cuts to maintain profitability.

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The founding family's controlling shareholding, and a blocking stake held by the state of Lower Saxony, where VW is headquartered, allow it to resist short-term pressures to pull out of any market that turns difficult.

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For a while now, this attack has had the look of a concerted plan to leave the company's main shareholder, Group Menatep (which holds more than 60% of Yukos and which is in turn controlled by Mr Khodorkovsky), with less than a 25% blocking stake, if any at all.

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Chinalco took its original stake in the hopes of blocking a merger that China feared would hand too much control of iron ore prices to one company.

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In 2006 he steered BSkyB into the acquisition of a 17.9% stake in UK broadcaster ITN, blocking a rival move by Virgin Media.

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Earlier this year, he shredded the reputation of Conrad Black with a forcefully worded 130-page ruling blocking Lord Black's sale of his stake in Hollinger Inc, a holding company that owned (among other newspapers) Britain's Daily Telegraph.

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