Papa Diego, dish of the day for Polish media giant

The media conglomerate Agora, the owner of Gazeta Wyborcza, edited by former Communist era dissident Adam Michnik, has sold all its shares in the Stopklatka private television broadcaster, owner of the movie channel Stopklatka TV and announced its strategy for years 2018-2022.

Media conglomerate to become a restaurateur

Agora, a Polish media conglomerate and publisher of Poland’s key opposition newspaper, is to branch out into the restaurant business.

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Agora’s strategy includes sales of PLN 1.6 bln (EUR 370 mln) healthy pre-tax profits of around PLN 200 mln (EUR 47 mln) by 2022.

One of the key assumptions of the group’s strategy is intensive digitization of all its activities, with focus on sales of subscriptions. The company will also develop its media and advertising arms, broaden its current new services and premium offers and start new lines in areas such as B2B services for e-commerce, innovative MarTech tools, entertainment and gastronomy.

Stopklatka sold

The shares Agora has sold in Stopklatka were around 42 percent of company’s share capital. The value of the transaction is around PLN 32 mln (EUR 7.46 mln).

The buyer of the shares is another private movie broadcaster, Kino Polska, which will be the major shareholder of Stopklatka.

The board of Agora estimates that this transaction improve its net financial result in Q2 of 2018.

Papa Diego

At the beginning of March, Helios signed an investment deal with a catering industry firm. Together, they intend to roll out a chain of restaurants described as “fast casual”. Their aim is to create 45 of outlets over the next four years.

Recently, some of the details have been revealed.

Foodio Concepts, a company form the Helios group has created a new gastronomic brand – Papa Diego - planned to be a network of Mexican restaurants. At Papa Diego customers will be able to taste traditional Mexican dishes, such as burritos and tacos. “Mexican cuisine perfectly meets the needs of Poles, who look for new tastes. This is why we are creating Papa Diego, healthy, simple, street food, full of fresh ingredients and original combinations,” deputy CEO of Foodio Concepts, Piotr Komór, said.

The first outlets are expected to be opened this summer.

Agora is the publisher of Poland’s key opposition newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza”. Its editor-in-chief is Adam Michnik, one of the key opposition intellectuals during the Solidarity period and now one of the most vociferous critics of the current Law and Justice government.

Print media sales have been dropping due to natural attrition in the internet age, but overall media income has also suffered due to a fall in advertising revenue from “Gazeta Wyborcza” and Gazeta.pl and the company’s attempts to branch further out into the television industry stalled a few years ago.

Hence Agora has been relying on its newer business areas, in particular its outdoor advertising business and its the cinema chain, Helios, which was bought by the media giant back in 2010, to boost revenues.