The founder of the telecommunications and media giant United Group and former CEO have launched a legal battle in London to stop their majority shareholder, the private equity firm BC Partners, from selling the company's media division, claiming that the 30 million euros ($34.8 million) deal could extinguish the last editorially independent news outlets in Serbia.
Dragan Šolak, the former chairman of United Group, and Viktorija Boklag, its former CEO, initiated legal proceedings to halt the sale of the group’s media business ahead of a pivotal board meeting scheduled for May 28. According to their claim, negotiations are at an advanced stage, with a draft agreement already prepared to sell 100 percent of the shares in Adria News—the group's regional news network—to European Future Media Investments.
In a statement cited Tuesday by the regional news network N1 TV, the two minority shareholders accused BC Partners of negotiating the sale behind closed doors, completely bypassing their contractual right to consent.
The proposed buyer is European Future Media Investments, a Luxembourg-based fund backed by the Portuguese investment group Alpac Capital.
For press freedom advocates, the buyer's political connections are deeply alarming. Alpac Capital is headed by Pedro Vargas David, whose father, Mario David, is a former longtime adviser to Hungary’s illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orbán.
Late last year, Serbia’s increasingly authoritarian president, Aleksandar Vučić, publicly referred to the elder David as a "friend."
Alpac is no stranger to state-backed media acquisitions. Investigative reports previously revealed that the firm's 2022 acquisition of a majority stake in the European broadcaster Euronews was partially bankrolled by Hungarian state funds.
At the center of the fierce corporate tug-of-war is the Adria News Network (ANN), United Group’s media arm, which operates roughly 120 media operations across the Balkans. The portfolio is a vital lifeline for independent journalism in the region. It includes N1 TV—often a lone critical voice on Serbian airwaves—as well as Nova, TV Vijesti, the weekly magazine Radar, and the Serbian daily newspapers Danas and Nova.
“The sale of United Media would destroy the integrated telecommunications and media model built over years and hand over some of the last remaining independent media in Serbia to a buyer with a concerning track record regarding media freedoms,” Šolak said in a press release.
He added that he was "deeply concerned" and would take all necessary legal steps to ensure his rights under the shareholders' agreement are fully enforced.
The London lawsuit—filed against three entities controlled by BC Partners through Gerrard Enterprises LLC and Cable Management Company Ltd—seeks a court injunction to block the sale entirely.
Šolak and Boklag argue that their shareholders' agreement explicitly grants them the right to consent to any material change in United Group’s business. Spinning off the media division, they contend, fundamentally transforms the company from an integrated telecommunications leader into a standard telecoms firm, destroying the distinct value of its Southeast European operations.
The escalating legal fight follows a recent setback for the minority shareholders, who recently saw a Dutch court reject a separate board challenge—a ruling that had already heightened press freedom anxieties in Serbia.
Now, shifting their battle to the U.K., the founders are framing the lawsuit as both a contractual dispute and a moral imperative. Regional media freedoms, they stated, "are too important to be treated as a disposable item in the exit process of a private equity fund.”
In a brief statement responding to the swirling reports, the Adria News Network said it does not comment on market speculation, adding that "our newsroom operations and editorial processes continue as normal." United Group similarly declined to comment on the pending litigation.
