In the history of printed media, Pobjeda is daily newspaper with longest tradition in Montenegro. Until 1st January 1975 it was published once or twice per week; after that it became a daily newspaper, and it remained so until today. Pobjeda is considered as a symbol of Montenegrin journalism, occupying the same place as The Times in Great Britain.
The last decade of 20th century was a turbulent period for all former Yugoslav republics. The majority of war propaganda was channeled through public broadcasters – television, radio, but daily newspapers as well. Pobjeda had the same fate as Vjesnik in Croatia or Politika in Serbia. Besides the loss of influence, reliability and credibility, Pobjeda was also unable to adapt to technical innovations that were demanded by the new age.
New media, now liberated from state influence, started to gather wider following – a trend that left the state media in a vacuum. Traditional and state-oriented Pobjeda had remained on the very bottom of readership rankings. As a consequence, the most prominent journalist left Pobjeda and went to private media in Montenegro.
At the start of European integration process, Western Balkan countries had enacted laws on privatization. Montenegrin law on privatization from 1999 envisaged that media could no longer be financed by state budget. (Law on media from 2002 had additionally underlined this). In accordance, Pobjeda should have entered the marked at the beginning of 2000. However, this process started after 8 years.
At the first request for tender (2007), the state had offered 51% of Pobjeda’s actions for sale, but the tender had failed because there were no offers. A year later, new request for tender was organized, under the same conditions. At that time Pobjeda had around 550 employees. The main potential bidder was German media company WAZ. During the negotiations, tender commission increased the share of actions to 76%. The greatest obstacle in the second privatization attempt was the Pobjeda’s management request regarding the tax and contribution debt towards employees. WAZ never submitted official offer. According to WAZ official statement, the company had “decided to stop all new projects in South East Europe during global financial crisis”. The unofficial explanation was that Pobjeda’s management had altered collective agreement in order to force WAZ to pay high severance pay to employees, which prompted WAZ to withdraw from negotiations. According to director of Restructuring Agency, Branko Vujović, Pobjeda owed 2.67 million Euros to the state for taxes only. Minister of finance Igor Lukšić signed rescripts on deferred payment. One of the obstacles for privatization was collective agreement which had guaranteed severance pays up to 35 000 Euros. Pobjeda had surplus of employees; between 150-200 depending on the estimate. That would cost a potential buyer several million Euros.
In an attempt to strengthen Pobjeda’s position on the market, the Government appointed Srđan Kusovac as an Editor in Chief. Mr. Kusovac had previously worked as a journalist of Radio Free Europe in Prague and B92 in Belgrade. After decades of using Cyrillic script, Pobjeda is published in Latin script since 2010. Pobjeda also started online edition in 2010, in form of the news portal.
The third request for tender was started in 2011, with an offer of 85,9% of the shares. Avaz-roto press from Bosnia and Herzegovina had offered 1 Euro as a purchase price; after receiving Invitation letter for negotiations, the sum was increased to 1000 000 Euros. According to the report of Tender commission from 14th March 2013, Avaz had asked the state to take over Pobjeda’s debts towards Bank of Podgorica and Erste Bank, and also to write off debt worth 1.2 million Euros. The state offered a solution – loan rescheduling under favorable conditions. According to the same report, Avaz hasn’t responded in required deadline, nor withdrew the offer. Request for tender had expired on 31st August 2012, and the whole procedure was officially proclaimed unsuccessful.
The unofficial explanation was that the main obstacles for privatization were unrealistic demands by Ministry of finance and Prime Minister’s disinterest to finalize the deal.
After years of unsuccessful attempts to reduce Pobjeda’s costs and losses, Kusovac leaves his position in August 2013 and moves to the position of Head of Government of Montenegro’s Bureau of public relations.
One of the most interesting aspects of Pobjeda’s privatization was the role of Montenegrin Government in the process. The Government has changed the tax debts into capital twice, which led to shares increase to 85.98%. The state gave guarantees at commercial banks to Pobjeda – one in the amount of 2.97 million and second in the amount of 3.5 million Euros. According to the official statements, these credits were intended for payment of overdue wages and severance payments.
Especially interesting thing regarding the whole process of privatization was the purchase of land and building of Pobjeda (at the time, Government was the majority owner of the newspapers). The price of building was estimated at 4.89 million Euros. Montenegrin Government had compensated the amount of 2.8 million Euros for tax debt and contribution for employees accrued since the acquisition of the building. The public still lacks insight into detailed expenditure of the price difference by the former Pobjeda’s management. According to the unofficial statement by former general manager Lav Lajović, this 2 million difference was spent for bank interest rates, social program and overdue wages.
Despite the fact that the Government has compensated for tax debt on the basis of purchase of Pobjeda’s building, Tax administration asked the Court to declare Pobjeda’s bankruptcy on 11th August 2014, based on tax debt and contributions for employees in the amount of 1,154,000 Euros.
The strong pressures by representatives from international organizations, such as OSCE’s representative for freedom of the media Dunja Mijatović and the Head of EU delegation in Montenegro, were exerted with the intention to hasten the privatization of those newspapers.
After 7 years of unsuccessful attempts to privatize Pobjeda and 13 years after establishing a legal framework for the implementation of legal norms, the privatization process was finished on 17th November 2014. By signing the agreement between commissioner Mladen Marković and Boris Darmanović, representative of Media Nea company that owns Dnevne novine newspapers and news portal Café del Montenegro, Pobjeda finally became privately owned. The contract from 1st December 2014 envisages that buyer acquires property rights on day of payment of the total purchase price. Media Nea company offered 757,000 Euros in total and became the only official owner of Pobjeda. Draško Đuranović, founder of Portal Analitika, was appointed as an Editor in Chief.
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Selena Tasic, Programme Manager at Public Policy Institute
This article has been published on the website fairpress.eu.