#6
Exiled Russian tycoon Gusinsky gives up remnants of media empire
AFP
July 10, 2002

Two years after fleeing Russia into exile, Vladimir Gusinsky has given up the last vestiges of what was once a leading independent media empire to state-dominated gas giant Gazprom, it was announced.

In a brief statement, Gazprom said Wednesday it had acquired all shares held by Gusinsky in press and broadcasting outlets of his former Media-MOST group taken over by the gas producer last year.

In line with the agreement struck between Gazprom and Gusinsky, who now lives in Spain to escape from what he says are politically-motivated fraud charges, "the details of the transaction are not being made public," the company said.

The takeover in May 2001 of Media-MOST, which was endebted to Gazprom to the tune of several hundred million dollars, sparked accusations from civil rights defenders that President Vladimir Putin was crushing the independent media.

In particular its flagship NTV television, which was the only nationwide independent network and won respect for its hard-hitting news coverage, immediately began to tone down its criticism of government policy.

Echo Moscow radio, which alone among the Media-MOST outlets has maintained its independent editorial line because of a deal giving the journalists continued control and some shares, now fears it is next in line.

The radio claims a nationwide audience of one million.

"We were not officially told about the sale of shares, although the law says that as shareholders, we had a preferential right to buy them and we had to be informed," Yury Fedutinov, director of the radio station, told AFP.

"We are ready for any scenario," he added.

Gazprom, which already controls 52 percent of shares in the radio, has said it plans to sell off all its media holdings by the end of the year, a sale likely to raise 250 to 300 million dollars, according to the newspaper Vremya.

"This deal will increase investors' interest in Gazprom-Media assets," the gas group's chief executive Alexei Miller, said in the statement.

But Echo Moscow journalists, who have only 34 percent of shares, fear that the gas giant may change its decision.

"If Gazprom does not sell its shares, as it has announced, that risks complicating things," said Fetudinov.

For the moment, the journalists enjoy continued autonomy as last month Gazprom met the station's demands to allocate four places on the board of directors each to journalists and four to Gazprom nominees as well as one independent director.

Gusinsky, quoted in the Gazprom statement, said he was proud of having created "an independent media group which occupied a leading position in Russia," and hoped that the new management would continue the same tradition.

After the takeover of NTV, its journalists fled to TV-6, owned by Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, another Kremlin critic who is also in exile.

But that station was closed down by a disputed court order and TV6 has since reopened under new Kremlin-backed management, now called TVS.

According to the Russian press, Gusinsky still owned 30 percent of NTV, 42.5 percent of satellite channel NTV +, 48.3 percent of local television TNT, 25 percent minus one share of publishing group "Sem Dniei" and 14.5 percent of Moscow Echo.

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