Swedes pull out of Latvian print media

The Swedish Bonnier Group, pioneers in setting up business newspapers in the Baltics (Estonian Aripaev was set up before independence in 1989/?/), have sold the the Latvian daily Diena and the business daily Dienas bizness to a local company called Nedeļa, which is run by a former executive of Diena.
My quick take is that both papers (which have been losing money) were sold for a song in a move that basically takes Swedish investors out of the Latvian print media market. It is noteworthy that neither the Estonian business paper, nor the one in Lithuania were sold and remain among the subsidiary Bonnier Business Press priority investments.
It is also a significant signal that the owner of an authoritative business newspaper in Sweden, Dagens industri, is getting out of Latvia. If this is so, perhaps other Swedish investment may follow or at least slow down any plans to expand here. To my mind, regretably but rightly, the Swedes are labeling Latvia as the basket case of the Baltics and Eastern Europe.
On a personal note, I worked for Dienas bizness from 1995 to 2006 and enjoyed that time very much. It is sad to see the paper, developed under Swedish guidance and as part of a group of business newspapers owned by the Bonnier Group, is now cut loose and left on its own. Dienas bizness has been taking increasing desperate staff cuts and salary reductions as advertising revenues have declined.

Added later:

The buyer, Nedeļa, is owned by a Luxembourg finance company owned, in turn, by an Estonian entrepreneur Kalle Norberg and other private investors.

Casten Almquist, CEO of Bonnier Business Press, told this blogger that the sale was mutually advantageous, but the Swedish company, under present economic conditions, saw a somewhat greater potential for developing its assets in Estonia and Lithuania.

John Hedberg, a former Bonnier executive, who advised Nedeļa on the transaction, said that there would be no short-term changes at both publications. Measures to cut costs and restructure both businesses were showing some results, though one would have to wait and see how this played out in the medium to long term. He said Diena and Dienas bizness both were good brands with a good reputation

It ain't just me, babe...

Some people think I am too depressive and pessimistic writing that Latvia has basically destroyed all trust in state institutions and is heading for some form of failed nightwatchman government pretending to rule an increasingly alienated society drifting, at best, into some form of cooperative anarchy (organizing replacements of failed public services privately or by volunteer activity).
In fact, I was gently criticized for my pessimism by a Latvian academic (former "exile" Latvian) I met while grocery shopping.
Now, a prominent businessman/architect in Liepaja has said much the same in an interview with my former employer, the business newspaper Dienas bizness. Uldis Pīlēns says the way that the government has tried to react to the crisis has essentially destroyed public trust in fundamental democratic values -- the so-called legal reliance on getting a just return for taxes and social fees paid. Instead, pensions have been reduced, working pensioners driven from their jobs and teachers reduced to working for less pay educating future generations than Latvian janitors (sētnieki) ar paid for sweeping the streets with a broom made of twigs.
He also says that the behavior of the government in leaping to save the foundering Parex Bank with the first international loans it received, then acting chaotically to appear to cut the budget to get the next tranche (pensions won't be touched, then pensions are cut) has badly damaged Latvia's international image in the eyes of potential investors. A level of unemployment has been created that it will take 6 or 7 years to recover from. So Pīlēns, too, is saying that most of the next decade in Latvia is lost due to the cumulative mistakes and incompetance of several Latvian governments.