N1 Program Director Igor Bozic said on Monday says that the media outlets in United Media face uncertainty, adding that their managements decided to end the uncertainty with an offer to United Group’s majority owner BC Partners for a buyout.
“We are at an unusual stage as people whose primary job is journalism. We’ve decided to take matters into our own hands, to somehow put an end to this uncertainty, and to offer United Group’s majority owner an opportunity to hand us these media outlets. We will find investors who can help us survive in the coming period,” Bozic said on the Cao Nevena podcast with Nevena Madzarevic.
He said the uncertainty started when United Group co-owner Dragan Solak and the company’s CEO Viktoria Boklag were dismissed from the UG management.
According to Bozic, The N1 Group and its partner newsrooms – Nova S and its Nova.rs portal, Danas daily and Radar weekly – also made offers to BC Partners and United Group for a 100 percent buyout of their news operations in Serbia and the region.
“We proposed a management buyout, a model under which we would take over the management of our media outlets, which cannot survive independently. We already have people willing to invest in helping us consolidate and remain on the market — as we are,” Bozic said. He added that this is the most efficient approach when something needs to be done quickly.
He said there has been no reply to the offer, adding that it would be ideal way out for BC Partners who got entangled into what he said is a dirty political game across the Balkans. He said the leaked conversation between UG CEO Stan Miller and state-controlled Telekom Serbia CEO Vladimir Lucic showed that the plan the Serbian president wanted to push through would allow him to say that everything changed in private deals which he had nothing to do with.
Bozic said that a guarantee for continued operation by N1 and Nova is a firm 5-year contract with our cable operator SBB (now YETTEL) securing regular monthly income.
Source: N1
