KP Media

The company was founded in 1995 together with the launch of the Kyiv Post; the “KP” in its name stands for Kyiv Post. About six months after the Kyiv Post’s launch, the company reworked the database it used to contact advertisers into a business directory, the Kyiv Business Directory, which it sold and which later grew into a separate project. During the 1998 financial crisis the company kept the Kyiv Post going without cutting staff, but its Russian-language publications ran into serious problems; among them, the women’s magazine Edinstvennaya was scaled back and eventually sold.⁠[1][2][3][3][3][3]

In 2000, Sunden launched the internet portal Bigmir.net, which grew into one of Ukraine’s largest information portals; in 2001 came Afisha, a glossy nightlife and entertainment guide; and in 2002 the Russian-language news weekly Korrespondent, whose core team consisted of young journalists from the Kyiv Post. By 2011, Korrespondent had a circulation of 50,000; the company also ran its companion news site korrespondent.net.⁠[3][3][3][1][1]

A 2010 conference paper on Ukrainian media ownership argued that KP Media was probably the only successful media holding in Ukraine with foreign (American) capital, and that its owner had been pressured by the authorities during Leonid Kuchma’s presidency, being declared persona non grata in 2000.⁠[4][4]

On August 5, 2003, Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court ruled against KP Publications in a defamation suit brought by the Interregional Academy for Personnel Management (MAUP), ordering it to pay Hr 80,000 to MAUP and Hr 20,000 to Ihor Slissarenko, editor of the academy’s monthly magazine. The case concerned a February 2003 Korrespondent article, after Korrespondent, the Kyiv Post and other outlets had reported on the school’s links with allegedly anti-Semitic figures, including former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Sunden called the ruling bad for freedom of speech and the damages disproportionate, and the company vowed to appeal.⁠[5][5][5][5][5]

During the 2004 Orange Revolution, the company printed 50,000 copies of a daily called Korrespondent Extra, distributing them free to protesters on Independence Square and shipping them to regions under information blackouts, while korrespondent.net and the Kyiv Post website were updated around the clock. By 2005, the company had also launched the women’s magazine Pink and the home magazines Idei Vashego Doma and Interior Magazin in cooperation with Russia’s Formax Publications, and published the Ukrainian edition of the tech magazine Stuff. Sunden said at the time that the company’s revenues had grown 40% in 2004, with profits growing even more.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][3]

In March 2006, KP Publications was renamed KP Media. That year, investment bank Dragon Capital helped the company sell 20% of its shares, raising $11 million; Dragon Capital listed the deal among the capital raisings it completed for Ukrainian companies in its 2006 results press release. A minority stake in the company was thereafter held by portfolio investors.⁠[1][6][7][8]

After the 2006 placement, the company launched the free metro daily 15 Minutes, the Ukrainian-language women’s magazines Pani and Vona, and the news weekly Novynar.⁠[6]

The 2008 global financial crisis sharply contracted Ukraine’s advertising market, and KP Media closed all the new publications it had launched after the 2006 placement, including 15 Minutes, Pani, Vona and Novynar, while Pink was also sold or closed. In July 2009, the company sold the Kyiv Post to Mohammad ZahoorMohammad ZahoorMohammad Zahoor is a Karachi-born British businessman and founder of the ISTIL Group. He studied metallurgy in Donetsk in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, ran a steel business in Ukraine in the 1990s, and after selling his Donetsk steel mill in 2008 turned to real estate and media investments; from 2009 to 2018 he owned the Ukrainian English-language newspaper Kyiv Post.Open the full entry’s ISTIL Group; Sunden said the proceeds would go to the company’s priority internet news sites and print publications, including Korrespondent, korrespondent.net, bigmir.net, Afisha and the Kyiv Business Directory, adding, “We are heavily invested in Internet.”⁠[6][8][2][2][2]

Dragon Capital expected at the time that KP Media would use the sale proceeds to replenish working capital and reduce debt, and might be forced to divest other print media such as Afisha, keeping only Korrespondent while continuing to develop its internet business.⁠[6][6][6]

On April 1, 2011, the Kyiv Post reported, citing informed sources, that Sunden had reached a deal to sell his majority stake in KP Media, whose executive director at the time was Vitaliy Gorduz. In an April 5 statement, Sunden did not directly confirm the sale, saying only that he did not rule out new partners, on condition that the basic editorial principles and his own top management role in the company were preserved.⁠[8][8][9][9]

On April 13, Kyiv-based Ukrainian Media Holding (UMH) and Petro Poroshenko, founder of the Fifth TV Channel, confirmed that they had become strategic investors in KP Media, with Sunden remaining CEO. A three-party joint statement quoted Sunden as saying the new investors would develop the business side without interfering in editorial policy; the structure and value of the deal were not disclosed, and Concorde Capital acted as financial adviser.⁠[10][10][10][10]

On April 24, 2013, UMH bought from Poroshenko’s structures their 50% stakes in KP Media (Korrespondent magazine, the korrespondent.net website and the bigmir.net portal) and in Nashe Radio, becoming the sole owner of these companies. Poroshenko confirmed the sale and explained that it was carried out under the terms of an option the parties had agreed in 2010; the amount was not disclosed.⁠[11][11][11]

In June 2013, UMH and businessman Sergei Kurchenko’s VETEK group signed an agreement for the sale of 98% of the media holding; the deal, originally due to close in the first quarter of 2014, closed early in November 2013, and a VETEK company took over UMH’s operational management. The amount was not disclosed.⁠[12][12][12][12]