Ghana’s national broadsheet, The Daily Graphic, is up for sale to the public, and the reason constraining the state to sell it off is because the publisher, wholly state-owned Graphic Communications Group Limited, is broke.
Last Thursday, Management held a meeting with staff and announced that a decision had been taken by the Akufo-Addo cabinet, to list it on the Ghana Stock Exchange for an initial public offering (IPO).
This means that for the very first time in the history of Ghana’s most widely circulated newspaper, since its founding on 2nd October, 1950, Graphic is going to be privatized.
At the staff meeting on Thursday, Managing Director of GCGL, Ato Afful, told staff that the reason the state-owned newspaper has to be sold is because it is in very bad financial shape.
According to him, the company’s financial position is such that it is only able to generate enough to meet its operating expenses and needs additional capital leverage for more strategic investments.
In respect of the sale, it was confirmed that it is all the assets of Graphic that will be put on sale, with Mr. Afful saying that the value of all of Graphic’s assets, do not convert to much value.
According to him, this arrangement has been agreed upon by the current stakeholders of Graphic – Government, the Ministry of Information, the Public Enterprises Ministry, the National Media Commission (NMC) and the company’s board.
Prior to the meeting, there had been reports that Graphic was so broke that it had defaulted in the payment of the salaries of some serving staff and the pensions of some retired staff.
What this means is that Graphic had been financially struggling for some time. In fact, Mr . Ato Afful told the staff at the meeting that the Akufo-Addo cabinet had actually agreed on the IPO as far back as June, 2023.
On January 8, 2024, the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, had written to the Board Chair of the GCGL informing him that Messrs Fincap Securities Limited had been selected as transaction advisors.
When the IPO is executed and new owners come in, there is a high likelihood that they will cut down staff size, especially so, when the general newspaper industry, globally has taken a huge hit from the current digitalized nature of life in general.
According to reports, the foreseeable layoffs has put many staff on tenterhook.
Meanwhile, there is rife speculation that the IPO under consideration is likely to be executed in such a way that it will favor some cronies of government.
According reports making the rounds, there already are people close to government who had been aware of the intent to list Graphic on the GSE, long before even the staff of Graphic would learn about it.