MOSCOW, Oct. 14 The Expert publication, published since 1995, has initiated a financial recovery program, the reorganization partner will be VEB.RF, the publication’s largest creditor, reported Expert.Media LLC (which is the publisher of the magazine and website).
Roskomnadzor previously stopped validity of registration certificates for electronic periodicals and the Expert magazine. The current licenses were registered to Expert.Media LLC (previously the licenses were registered to Expert Media Holding CJSC).
«The project involves changing the structure of the business in order to increase its profitability, reduce operating costs, increase the audience and expand distribution channels for the publication's content,» they said. Expert.Media».
As the publishing house noted, VEB.RF, the publication’s largest creditor, will act as a partner in the reorganization. In 2013, the publisher of the Expert and Russian Reporter magazines received a loan of 100 million rubles from VEB to solve its financial problems; in 2016, the state corporation increased the credit line to 550 million rubles. The loan funds expired on December 31, 2017. During the term of the loan agreement, the borrower did not service the loan, did not pay interest, and the loan was restructured several times. As a result, the VEB.RF corporation was forced to go to court. In February 2020, the Moscow Arbitration Court recognized as legal the corporation's claims against Expert Group JSC, which is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, in the amount of 771.1 million rubles, taking into account the penalty for the overdue loan and interest on it.
“In recent years, the Expert publication has faced a decline in financial performance, <…> which, among other things, led to the formation of a significant level of accounts payable for the asset. An additional consequence of the crisis in the publication was interruptions in payments to contractors and employees, including the editorial staff to the team,” the corporation explained.
Together with VEB.RF, the new publisher decided to preserve the magazine’s brand and will develop. “To relaunch Expert, a new management team has been brought in with experience in crisis management and media development. Media manager Maxim Troepolsky, who previously successfully managed the media at the federal and regional levels, has been appointed as the new general director of the publication,” the corporation noted. Troepolsky previously worked in the structures of VGTRK, and was also the general director of a number of television assets in St. Petersburg.
As clarified in Expert.Media, the printed version of Expert will temporarily stop publishing, the site will operate in news feed mode. At the same time, the relaunch of the publication with an updated concept will take place before the end of 2023.