Eesti Meedia majority owner Margus Linnamäe buys 55 percent of BNS parent company Uudisvoog OÜ and appoints Sven Nuutmann as new CEO of BNS.
BNS gets new owner and chief
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Just two months ago, the news agency BNS was bought out from the Finnish media group Alma Media by Ilmar Kompus, director-general of Sky Media. According to Margus Linnamäe, owners of BNS approached him with the offer to invest into it. «We planned to involve an investor in order to secure long-term and stable development of BNS Group,» said Uudisvoog OÜ board member Ilmar Kompus, via a press release.
Margus Linnamäe, board member of MM Group, said while commenting the deal that as he is already in media business, as an investor, the offer to join owners of BNS looked quite logical.
«This is not a rapid growth business. But in media business rapid internal change happens, requiring the right reactions. Meanwhile, the sector is stable, as there is a constant need for objective and professionally processed information,» said Mr Linnamäe. He did not exclude further investments into media, while remaining rather tongue-tied. «At the moment, I’d rather not comment; as soon as something happens in that direction, I’ll let you know,» he said.
Sven Nuutmann, a man with lengthy experience as media manager, will – in addition to leading BNS – also be in charge of investments into UP Invest media section, today consisting of said Eesti Meedia and BNS.
In 2009–2011, Mr Nuutmann worked as CEO of AS Delfi, a part of Ekspress Group. Having stepped down as executive manager of the security company USS at the beginning of May, Mr Nuutmann has earlier served as CEO of Sportland Eesti, vice president of Rambler Media Ltd, CEO of Rambler TV and Tele2 in Russia, and headed up MTG Radio, owned by the international media group Modern Times Group MTG AB, in Eastern Europe.
«BNS is clearly my priority, with which I deal daily. When it comes to Eesti Meedia, then one way or another I do help Margus [Linnamäe – edit] there, but let’s take one thing at a time. Quite likely that I will enter the Eesti Meedia affairs in some way, surely not on the executive level, rather as a representative of investor,» said Mr Nuutmann.
Mr Nuutmann sees no logical reason to somehow merge Eesti Meedia and BNS. «They are quite different. Surely, Eesti Meedia is an important client of BNS in the entire Baltics, but it makes no sense to merge them,» said Mr Nuutmann.
According to Mr Nuutmann, Mr Linnamäe’s investments into media business are the long-term kind, allowing the companies to be peacefully developed. «He surely isn’t expecting fast profits, which makes things good for BNS and Eesti Meedia alike. We have time to do things, but we have no pressure to execute any fast changes,» said Mr Nuutmann.
Both Mr Linnamäe and Mr Nuutmann said BNS’ market position needs the most improvement in Latvia: «The situation isn’t all that rosy; even so, it’s not loss-making either.»
According to Mr Linnamäe, no changes are planned in the structure of BNS, but the CEO will have the final say. Mr Nuutmann said he rather envisions a need to expand activities of BNS.
«I consider BNS the crown jewel of Estonian media. It needs to be polished up even more now, and I rather think there’s a lot to do here regarding expansion, rather increasing spending than cutting costs. No austerity news here, for you,» said Mr Nuutmann.
With the deal, BNS council undergoes a change. As representatives of UP Invest, Kristjan Vilosius and Paavo Truu step in.
BNS Group operates in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as news agency and media monitor. Last year, the group did €4.2m in turnover.