Joint Statement of the Minority Shareholders
We are the minority shareholders of the two Montenegrin companies that publish and broadcast under the Vijesti brand —Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) and the Montenegrin founders and co-owners, who together hold 49 percent of these companies. Over three decades we have built Vijesti into the most trusted and influential independent media company in Montenegro.
United Group has announced that it has agreed to sell the media business operating under the Adria News Network label – which includes Vijesti – to a third party, and presents this as a settled, “done deal” that includes the controlling stake in our companies.
It should be clear to everyone from the outset: this is neither settled nor done.
The transaction cannot be completed as described. What United Group has announced is not a premature disclosure — it is a false fait accompli.
The cold war over the future of Vijesti did not begin on 29 May. It is now clear that it began in February 2026, when United Group started re-organizing our companies under a new imaginary brand, “Adria News Network” (ANN), and started introducing new governance structures without our knowledge, our consent, or the approvals the law requires. The sale announcement is the latest — an attempt to present as concluded a transaction that has been pushed forward in steps, over the heads of the minority shareholders, for months.
United Group’s claim that this sale serves “the interest of all shareholders” cannot be reconciled with the plain fact that the owners of 49 percent of these companies were neither consulted nor informed before it was announced.
The so-called ANN label did not exist before February 2026. It was imagined specifically to gather under a single brand outlets with entirely different ownership structures — United Group’s wholly-owned Serbian, Slovenian and BiH assets alongside the Montenegrin companies in which we hold 49 percent. The effect, and we believe the intent, was to manufacture the public impression that whoever acquires ANN acquires everything — including Vijesti. It is a transparent device. The cherry-picking has already been accomplished through the ANN construction itself. Vijesti’s ownership structure is distinct as are any potential changes to that structure, and no alleged holding company label maliciously used in a media announcement changes that.
A controlling interest in independent media is not an ordinary commercial asset. The conditions under which it changes hands, and the protections that bind whoever acquires it, determine whether that media remains independent. For Vijesti, those questions remain unanswered. The editorial guarantees, independent editorial policies and advisory bodies invoked in the announcements cannot answer them — particularly where the proposed buyer already operates Euronews Srbija in partnership with Telekom Srbija, an arrangement that has for years drawn concern over editorial independence and allegations of political influence on its reporting. Independence is not protected by press releases issued alongside a transaction that bypasses the very safeguards designed to secure it.
This concern is heightened by the same sense of urgency evident in the published conversation between Stan Miller, CEO, United Group and Vladimir Lučić, CEO, Telekom Srbija from August 2025. In that exchange, Lučić states that President Aleksandar Vučić had asked Nikos Stathopoulos, Managing Partner, BC Partners to carry out rapid changes within United Media, while Miller gave assurances that matters would be completed “as soon as possible” because “the President is upset.” The speed with which those changes were then carried out, and the speed with which this sale is now being pushed through and proclaimed final, inevitably heighten the concern that political considerations have played a role in decisions affecting the future of independent media in the region.
While United Group was conducting its negotiations behind closed doors, we were not idle — we were working through our legal teams, before regulators, and in direct conversations with United Group’s own management. In August 2025, Vijesti’s management met Mr. Stathopoulos in Athens and told him directly of our wish to buy back the 51 percent stake. At that meeting, as we have recounted, Mr. Stathopoulos denied that any arrangement with President Vučić lay behind the changes at United Group — and gave his personal assurance that if United Group ever decided to sell its media holdings, the 51 percent would be offered to us first, both because Montenegrin law requires it and out of respect for three decades of our work. United Group’s silence in response to our subsequent formal demands has left us no other course but to make this public declaration. The regulatory processes we have initiated carry significant consequences for the parties involved — consequences we intend to pursue fully.
We are pursuing every avenue available to us through our legal teams, before the competent regulatory and judicial authorities, and we will set out our position in full in those forums. The ownership of Vijesti cannot be changed without compliance with legal, regulatory and contractual rights of its founders and co-owners. We call on the state institutions and regulatory bodies of Montenegro to carry out their duty and protect the country’s media landscape, or face the laws on Montenegro.
We ask our journalists, readers, viewers, partners and everyone who values independent media to prepare for a long and determined effort — this will not be settled by a single announcement, and we are ready to see it through for as long as it takes. We have defended Vijesti before, and we are ready to defend it again, however long the fight.
For the Montenegrin founders and co-owners of Vijesti
Željko Ivanović
Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), New York
Harlan Mandel
Podgorica / New York, 29 May 2026