Agora is leading negotiations to buy Ukrayinska Pravda, Ukraine’s most influential portal, Ukrainian rynok.biz said. The portal is very popular because it’s independent. It has 100,000 readers daily. Ukrayinska Pravda was founded by Georgij Gongadze who was murdered (Leonid Kuczma is suspected). Next to politics, the portal informs about economy social topics and sports.
“We don’t comment on speculations”, Urszula Strych, Agora’s spokeswoman said.
Olena Prytula, Ukrayinska Pravda editor in chief also refused to comment.
Analysts approve of Agora’s plans.
“This is a step in the right direction. In order to appear in Ukraine, you need to do this before your rivals, especially German publishing groups, do. The market is in the stage the Polish one was in the 1990ies. The history of “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily shows that Agora is doing great in such conditions”, Michal Marczak, DI BRE Bank analyst commented.
In May, Agora founded Agora Ukraina which is
supposed to focus on publishing and internet in Ukraine. Marek Sowa, Agora’s CEO
has recently said that the company was going to grow organically but he did not
exclude acquisitions. First projects were supposed to appear at the beginning of
2008.