The Angolan media company Newshold is closing the ‘i’ and ‘Sol’ newspapers and then reopening them with many of the same staff.
The company, run by former BES Angola chief Álvaro Sobrinho for the Madeleno family, is sacking around 120 workers and re-employing 66 of them to produce identically named publications.
"We are incredulous and sad," said one of the workers as the news was given to employees on Monday at a staff meeting.
The new contracts require continuing workers agree to wipe out any accrued benefits as a condition to ensure payouts for departing staff.
The restructuring means that Sol will be on newsstands on Saturday - not Friday - and the daily ‘i’ will no longer have weekend editions.
The new deal for retained staff means cuts in wages and zero travel expenses, among other measures.
‘Sol’ lost €4.4 million last year and ‘i’ lost €3.8 million.
Sobrinho is under investigation by Portugal's Securities Commission over his alleged involvement in Sporting shares, associated companies such as Holdimo and the Sporting management company SAD, but recently had the court ordered seizure of his Portuguese assets lifted.
Portugal’s prosecutor is keen to discover the origin of Sobrinho’s seemingly extraordinary wealth which may have been amassed during the period that he was non-executive chairman of BES Angola, the bank where a black hole of over €4 billion was discovered leading to the collapse of BES and much of the Espírito Santo Group.
The recycling of ‘Sol’ and ‘i’ by closing them down and resurrecting them is bound to raise questions as to Sobrinho’s motives and the legality of the scheme which appears to revolve around closing Newshold with significant losses and keeping the titles going with many of the same staff as before.
