Pleased to come out of a meeting and find, as I predicted would happen yesterday, that Mecom has secured another covenant test date extension from its banks - this one until 30 April. Not that you had to be a wizard to see that coming, but following the company closely helps. Now for the bigger question: which asset(s) will Mecom sell next? Its minority stake in Dutch AD Niewsmedia, its majority stake in Polish PressPublica, or something else entirely?
Update 02-04/09, 10am CET: The Telegrahp has an interesting take on yesterday's RNS.
... You must have a Magic Ball.
The next sell...
This morning there were two lines in the financial papers that one of the the Limburg Media Group-papers, Limburgs Dagblad, lost 5.9 percent of his paying readers.
Posted by: Rob | April 01, 2009 at 01:32 PM
Hmm.. would be something to have a crystal ball, but will have to make do with informed guesses for now. Is the Limburg area badly hit by the financial downturn, lots of people loosing their jobs, or is the competition (from other papers, the web etc) to blame for the loss of paying readers?
My ex told me earlier this week that the Dutch prime minister and the head of the central bank had made an "involuntary gentleman's agreement" over bonuses?? Involuntary gentleman's agreement sounds a bit like a contradiction in terms though...
Posted by: Kristine | April 01, 2009 at 02:09 PM
Limburg isn’t hit by the crises more than other parts of the country. But the lost of readers is here in ‘the South’ more than elswhere.
Agreements with banks is maybe something like a rabbit that is trusting a hungry wolf…
But all rabbits wil learn from the past.
Posted by: Rob | April 01, 2009 at 02:38 PM