'Makor Rishon' owner to buy 'Ma'ariv' for NIS 85m.

Amid financial struggles, Nochi Dankner agrees to sell paper to publisher of religious daily; 300-400 employees to be offered positions.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Newspaper laptop sports 311 (photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank [illustrative])
Newspaper laptop sports 311
(photo credit: Thinkstock/Imagebank [illustrative])
Shlomo Ben-Tzvi, the publisher of the right-wing Makor Rishon daily has agreed to buy Ma’ariv from Nochi Dankner for NIS 85 million, Globes reported on Friday.
Ben-Tzvi will not assume Ma’ariv’s debts as part of the deal, nor will he obtain Ma’ariv’s printing press.
“The buyer intends to continue the activities of the newspaper after completion of the deal,” Ma’ariv said in a letter to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
As part of the deal, which is expected to be completed by next month, 300 to 400 of Ma’ariv’s 2,000 employees will be offered work at Makor Rishon.
Ben-Tzvi has extensive media interests. He wants Ma’ariv to have a right-wing orientation similar to Makor Rishon’s. He was once a shareholder in Channel 10, and in the country’s first free-sheet, Israeli, published from 2006 to 2008. He also owns the Tchelet cable television station, which targets the national religious community, and although he won the tender for the Moreshet (“Heritage”) cable station, he decided not to take the license.
Earlier last week, Discount Investment’s board decided to inject an additional NIS 15m. into the ailing Ma’ariv, but added that the newspaper must immediately initiate a streamlining plan that includes additional layoffs, on top of the scores of employees already fired, terminating the daily print edition and continuing only with the Friday print and the online editions.