The Lloreda family closed a deal with Gabriel Gilinski, with which the businessman becomes the new owner of the traditional newspaper El País de Cali.
The newspaper reported this through an official statement published on its own website, in which it reports that “Last Tuesday, January 10, the shareholders of El País reached an agreement with Grupo Semana to sell the company that publishes the newspaper to this important publishing conglomerate.“.
The newspaper also states that through this business move “the future of the Cali newspaper is assured, which, with 73 years of existenceis one of the deans of the press in Colombia”.
Among the background to this transaction, the newspaper had been developing a renewal in the business structure since 2020 due to problems in its economic sustainability. The country owes $10,000 millionwhich made it insolvent and caused delays in payments to collaborators in 2022.
Despite the interest of a group of 12 businessmen from Antioquia and Valle del Cauca, Gabriel Gilinskiowner of Publicaciones Semana, was left with the direction, management and most of the board of directors of El País and Q Hubo de Cali. According to reports, this operation would have an approximate value of US$2 million, a figure that has not yet been formally confirmed by the parties..
Publications Week, which has recently established itself as one of the digital media with the largest audience in the country after the acquisition by Gilinski, it would invest around $12 billion in the technological transformation and $10 billion in the outstanding debt that the outlet has under the reorganization agreement. Likewise, the new shareholders will obtain the building of the newspaper in Cali, a lot valued at $14,000 million.
“El País was founded in 1950 by Álvaro Lloreda Caicedo and began work on April 23 of that same year. Throughout these seven decades, it has been the leading print media in southwestern Colombia. With the acquisition by Publicaciones Semana , El País takes a fundamental step to consolidate the business reactivation process that began in 2020,” El País said in its statement.
Publications Week also released an official statement on its website about the business. “Grupo Semana reached an agreement to acquire the newspaper El País, from Cali, the most important in the southwest and one of the references for the press in Colombia. The newspaper, throughout its 73-year history, since it was Founded by Álvaro Lloreda Caicedo, it has been a symbol of good journalism and a defender of democracy and institutions, and it will continue to be so,” Semana said.
Gilinski’s company also confirmed that “in this new era, the newspaper will benefit from a strategic investment plan that will allow it to strengthen itself in journalism and technology to face today’s challenges, and to continue fulfilling its mission to inform of responsible and truthful manner“.
Publications Semana reached revenues of $34,567 million in 2021, according to the report from the Superintendence of Companies. Added assets for $80,107 million. He ranked 17th in the consolidated ranking for media revenue last year, though he ranks fourth when only print media is considered.
As for El País, it recorded revenues of $28,115 million.
With this new purchase, the Gilinski Group continues to star in news that has shaken the business world in Colombia. Beyond the Semana acquisition, The Business Group of Cali origin, businessmen behind the GNB Sudameris bank, marked the business agenda last year with the Public Acquisition Offers launched on companies of the Antioqueño Business Group, such as Nutresa, Sura and Argos.
The dispute that arose over the newspaper
With this new acquisition, El País of Cali prevented the GEA, through Manuel Santiago Mejía from Grupo Corbeta, from controlling the publication, as happened with the newspaper El Colombiano of Medellín, and put the most successful brand of printed newspapers, Qhubo, in check. , where it shares ownership with several partners. This publication is a federation business model, but it commercially exploits a single name and in numbers It exceeds daily impressions of 100,000 units, which makes it the king of popular newspapers in Colombia.
Another play is that puts Prisa and its brand El País in Madrid in check, that has set foot in the Colombian market, since the Country of Cali owns several domains with this name where the Spanish newspaper has grown digitally.
Several media had already gone ahead this weekend to report the purchase of Mejia and his partners, however, at that time the deal had not been completed, which sparked internal disputes between both buyers and sellers.. What had happened is that Manuel Santiago Mejía supported the organization of a group of various Valle del Cauca businessmen, such as Colombina, Carvajal, Manuelita and Tecnoquímicas, among others, to assist them in the creation of the same scheme that was used in Medellín and despite the fact that the business was going to be for close to $16,000 million, the 25 heirs of the family Lloreda accepted better the offer of the Semana Group of $12,000 million and the return to the partners of a patrimonial savings of almost half a million dollars abroad. The mastermind behind this operation was Gabriel Gilinski, who also completed the purchase of 100% of Semana last December, by completing payments of US$20 million to Felipe López.