It has been a month since the management buyout offer for N1 and other United Media outlets in Serbia was submitted to their owners, BC Partners. N1 Program Director Igor Bozic said that while the owners replied they do not currently wish to sell the media to a “third party,” the reorganization discussed in a leaked conversation between United Group CEO Stan Miller and Telekom Srbija CEO Vladimir Lucic “is about to come into effect.”
Bozic noted that the response from the owners, specifically BC Partners, regarding the buyout offer was – we will not sell the media to a third party for the time being.
“However, the response also states that they plan to implement certain measures, in agreement with regulators, to make our media even more independent. This is what raises red flags or rather, suspicions, because we know that isn’t the real goal. What we journalists have managed to uncover at this point is that a reorganization is indeed being planned, as heard in the conversation between Stan Miller and Vladimir Lucic. Our information suggests that the Serbian media outlets will be moved under a Luxembourg-based company, with the idea of adding Montenegro’s Vijesti to the group to create a so-called ‘news division’ within United Group,” N1’s program director explained.
Bozic described the selection of media for this division as very strange, noting that it targets precisely those outlets that report critically on the authorities in both Serbia and Montenegro.
“We replied to our owners expressing our fears, and reiterating that we are still seeking a buyout as the only way to truly protect ourselves,” he said.
“N1 is not a third party”
Addressing the statement from BC Partners that they “will not sell to a third party,” Bozic said that “N1 is not a third party.”
“We are the people who built these media outlets and this company from the ground up, who produce the program and everything you see. I believe people are the most valuable asset. Media outlets are only worth as much as the people producing the content, people who are winning awards in the European Union. Journalists’ associations across Europe recognize our work as highly respectable, objective, independent, and professional. We are winning awards at home, too. So it is unclear to us what they mean when they say they want to ‘further establish our independence,’” he said.
“Reorganization is about to come into effect”
Bozic explained that N1 already has its own editorial structure and board, including Editorial Board Advisor Peter Horrocks, a long-time BBC editor, and that there is no need for a new structure – a topic raised in the Miller-Lucic conversation.
“We know there is a plan to appoint a new editorial board within this new company being set up in Luxembourg. We don’t know who these people are. No one has discussed it with us. We don’t know who the advisors are that United Group has been talking about since the summer. We want answers to these questions because we have reason to be suspicious. We never received a definitive answer regarding what the conversation between Miller and Lucic actually meant, what promises were made to (Serbian) President (Aleksandar) Vucic, or what kind of reorganization was discussed back then. It seems we are now reaching the stage where that reorganization is about to come into effect,” Bozic emphasized.
He added that a response has been sent to the owners, making it clear no consent will be given to the forcible imposition of a new editorial team.
As a reminder, in late August, OCCRP and KRIK published an audio recording of a conversation between United Group CEO Stan Miller and Vladimir Lucic, the CEO of Telekom Srbija. In the recording, Lucic is heard saying that President Aleksandar Vucic had asked for the removal of chief executive of United Media – which manages N1, Nova S, Danas, and Radar – and for the companies in Serbia to be “made very small.”
Listen to the conversation between Lucic and Miller here.
Source: N1
