Baltic News Service Sold to Estonian Company
The Finnish media group Alma Media announced the sale of the news service and media monitoring company BNS Grupp to OÜ Uudisvoog, a subsidiary of Koha Capital.
Uudisvoog is owned by Ilmar Kompus, the director general of the radio group Sky Media. He told ERR radio on Monday that he foresees no significant changes in the work of BNS, as the news service has a strong position on the Estonian market.
The same cannot be said of other Baltic states, however, and one of the potential development agendas of the new owners is improving the position of BNS in Latvia and Lithuania, Kompus said.
The BNS Grupp comprises of the three news services in the Baltic states and three media monitoring agencies.
BNS was established in 1990 and in 1998 it became part of the Alma Media group. Kompus told ETV that the initiative for the sale came from Alma Media, as BNS was not consistent with its strategic plans. The value of the sale was not disclosed.
Last year, the turnover of BNS Grupp was 4.2 million euros.
The BNS sale is the second recent instance of a foreign media company exiting Estonia, after Eesti Meedia group, which owns Postimees and Kanal 2, was bought by its Estonian management from Norwegian group Schibsted at the end of 2013.