The 23 remaining directors of Indpendent News and Media must be feeling a little nervous these days.

The departure last week of two of their number - David Palmer and Gerry McGuinness - got the company out of a very sticky situation.

By stepping down the two men brought the combined shareholding of the board down below 30 per cent, the level at which a mandatory bid for the company should have been triggered.

The board's stake is now back down around 29 per cent. The bulk of this is made up of the 26.8 per cent stake held by Sir Anthony O'Reilly and 2 per cent or so held in the form of treasury shares bought in a recent buyback programme to prop up the flagging share price.

It was the buyback programme that got Independent into trouble in the first place as it took the board's stake over the mandatory threshold.

Although the panel accepted this was an inadvertent mistake it told the company to rectify the problem. In the normal way Independent would have had to sell some of the treasury shares, undoing the benefit - such as it was - of this use of shareholder funds.

However, the company avoided this disaster - not to mention some embarrassment - thanks to the departure of the two executives. In fact - if it was not for a statement from a rather annoyed Takeover Panel, the market would have been none the wiser.

Independent is adamant that the two men's departure had been flagged for months, but somehow it forgot to inform the Takeover Panel of this when it was being hauled over the coals last month.

No doubt another "inadvertent mistake" and the cause of some annoyance to the panel.

Anyway, all's well that ends well and the good news is that Independent can now spend another €7 million of shareholders' money to prop up the share price before running foul of the 30 per cent limit.