(source: Sme)
After years of speculation about the sale of the Pravda daily, its new owner is Czech senator Ivo Valenta.
“We are pleased to have agreed the acquisition of PEREX,” Michal Voráček, chairman of the Board of Directors of OUR MEDIA SR, the company that bought the publishing company PEREX. “We see a potential to develop our activities on the Slovak market. Pravda is a strong brand and we have interesting projects and plans.”
Apart from publishing the daily, it operates its online version pravda.sk and the websites varecha.sk, birdz.sk, avizo.sk and moment.sk.
Jan Svoboda, who shelters Valenta’s activities in Slovakia in the fields of media and tourism, is deputy chairman of the OUR MEDIA SR, the Sme daily reported.
Ivo Valenta also controls the news website Parlamentní Listy, including its Slovak version, which is on the list of conspiracy websites.
PEREX was controlled by the company Florena of the entrepreneur Karol Biermann.
Valenta has earned his fortune in the gambling business. He said last January for the website of the Czech magazine Respect that he treats media only as a business and not as an instrument of his political career.
“The media is only an investment for me,” said Valenta.
