The investors of Vesti newspaper are not ready to reveal their names due to the current circumstances affecting the holding, Vesti chief editor Ihor Huzhva has said.
“I said that I had partner investors who invest money in the project. Due to current circumstances around the holding, they aren’t ready to reveal their names. And I understand them: nobody wants to get into unnecessary trouble,” Huzhva wrote on his Facebook page in response to questions asked by Novoe Vremya Weekly chief editor Vitaly Sych regarding the activities of Vesti newspaper.
Since the beginning of the economic crisis in Ukraine, the newspaper has had to change its previously announced plans on a three-year payback period, Huzhva said.
“Absolutely, after the Maidan and the beginning of the economic crisis, we had to adjust our plans. Plans on the three-year payback period are now out of the question. We, as other mass media, must make one of two decisions. First: to close our media projects considering their low profitability in the near future. Second: to continue investing, following logic to increase the market share. Yes, currently the project is loss-making, but it has chances to take the leading positions at the market or increase its share at the market to maximum,” Huzhva said.
The holding which Vesti is associated with boosted its revenues from advertising, despite the crisis in the first quarter of 2015, by 44 percent year-on-year.
Previously, on his Facebook page, Sych asked Huzhva several critical questions regarding the holding’s business model, investors, and its allegedly one-sided coverage of news in Ukraine.
Huzhva, in turn, said that he considered the possibility of filing a lawsuit against Sych, who also asked how Radio Vesti can afford to rent an office at Horizon Tower on Shovkovychna Street as “there are very few advertisements on the radio.”
“I asked lawyers to study the question of filing a lawsuit against Sych, demanding contradiction of doubtful information distributed by him about Radio Vesti,” Huzhva said.
As reported, the Fiscal Service of Ukraine on June 18 initiated two searches, including a search of non-residential office space belonging to Vesti Mass Media LLC on Sportyvna Street in Kyiv.
The State Fiscal Service reported that these investigating actions were conducted under a pretrial investigation of the criminal proceeding opened in April 2014 on tax evasion, fictitious entrepreneurship and legitimization of criminally obtained income by officials of Vesti Mass Media LLC under Part 3 of Article 212, Part 2 of Article 205 and Part 3 of Article 209 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Vesti Mass Media LLC is the founder of Vesti newspaper, the final beneficiary of which is its chief editor Ihor Huzhva.
Vesti is the leading free newspaper in Ukraine.
