German Media Empire WAZ Ready to Pull out of Bulgaria

Bulgarian daily Trud, owned by WAZ, is the second most-circulated newspaper in the country.

German WAZ Media Group is fully ready to completely pull out of the Balkans, WAZ director Bodo Hombach told German daily Handelsblatt.

In Bulgaria, WAZ owns dailies Trud and 24 Chasa – some of the most widely circulated Bulgarian newspapers.

“South-East Europe is not a marked in which we see a future for us,” said Hombach. He added that WAZ is ready to sell its newspapers there – not immediately but rather when they can make it “profitably”.

In the region, WAZ is present in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia and Romania. This year it sold some of its papers in Serbia and Romania.

The Serbian case was marred by a conflict between WAZ and the government, with economy minister Mladjan Dinkic saying that “There is no place for WAZ in Serbia.” The war was flamed by the failure of WAZ to purchase Serbian daily Novosti, which according to WAZ was caused by local officials and oligarchs.

Monday Handelsblatt writes that Hombach is committed to completely pull out of Serbia by the end of the year.

The WAZ boss explained that the cause of the planned pull-out of the whole region is due to abuse of power and collusion between governments and oligarchs, which hampers the normal business of the media group.

Handelsblatt adds that any withdrawal of WAZ from South-Eastern Europe has to be effected under close cooperation with London-based Osteuropabank, which holds a stake in all WAZ operations in the region.

According to WAZ data quoted by Handelsblatt, the media group's business in Bulgaria, as well as in Macedonia, Croatia and Hungary, brings net profit to the company.

Recently in Bulgaria there have been rumors of a looming WAZ pull-out of Bulgaria, which were nevertheless denied by WAZ representatives.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!