Nyhedsavisen was a Danish free daily newspaper owned by investment and advisory catalyst LundXY. It was closed in August 2008 with a reported deficit of approximately $100 million, the latest victim of the so-called "newspaper wars" in Denmark. The first issue was published on October 6, 2006.[1]
| Type | Free daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Compact |
| Owner(s) | LundXY |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Language | Danish |
| Headquarters | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Website | avisen.dk |
At its inception, the paper was owned by the Icelandic Baugur Group, with minority stakes held by a number of co-founders, including Morten Lund. However, in January 2008, Baugur decided to sell Lund a 51% majority share of Dagsbrun Media, the holding company for the newspaper. For the acquisition, Lund had teamed up with Morten Wagner of Freeway, an owner of popular social networking sites such as dating.dk and arto.dk. It is believed that they bought the stake for a single Danish crown. At that stage, the newspaper had lost close to $50 million. Rumour has it that Morten Lund assumed this debt.
Detractors have pointed out that Nyhedsavisen suffered with funding issues from the outset; at launch, analysts were concerned that Baugur's £4.5m investment was too small to keep it afloat. It was also reported in the Danish press that the newspaper lost 20m Danish crowns (€56m) over the course of 2007, before Lund's takeover. However, under new ownership it officially claimed the position of most widely read newspaper in Denmark, with a daily circulation of 551,000.
Four days before the bankruptcy Morten Lund reportedly offered to buy the competing newspaper 24 Timer for $80 million.
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