High Court appoints liquidator, Newsday's 32-year run nears end

The High Court has approved an application to wind up the Newsday newspaper after 32 years.

At a hearing on January 23, Justice Marissa Robertson granted an application filed on December 31 by attorneys for Daily News Ltd, the newspaper’s parent company. Justice Robertson also appointed chartered financial analyst Maria Daniel, a partner at Ernst & Young Services Ltd, as liquidator.

Daniel will now take control of the company and is responsible for assessing and selling its assets to pay outstanding creditors.

Attorney Gregory Pantin told the court there were no objections to the application after it was advertised in the Gazette on January 15.

The winding-up petition said the company was insolvent and could not pay its debts.

“By reason of its liabilities, the company cannot continue its business, and it is just and equitable that the company be wound up.

“There are no other remedies available to the petitioner…” the petition read.

It noted that the company’s shareholders “considered it desirable and in the best interests of the company that the company be wound up by order of the High Court of Justice of Trinidad and Tobago pursuant to Section 355(a) of the Companies Act.”

At Friday’s hearing, Pantin urged against provisional liquidation, saying there would be “more risk involved” by going through that double stage, suggesting the best course of action would be for the liquidator to “get in and start” the liquidation process.

The decision to have the company wound up was disclosed on January 9, when Newsday published its final print edition. The newspaper was founded in September 1993.

Newsday has continued to publish digitally while the winding-up proceedings are pending, and Daniel will now determine whether those operations will continue during the liquidation process.

Daily News Ltd is also represented by attorney Miguel Vasquez of Hamel-Smith and Company.

Appearing at the hearing was Brent Mark Bristol, who identified himself as an “interested party,” and asked that Newsday’s archives and records be preserved. He said he was not objecting to the petition but only wanted assurances that the newspaper’s archives would be preserved.

Pantin gave an undertaking to make enquiries, but again urged the court not to make a preservation order as such could not be made “until the liquidator is appointed and takes control.”

“We should not preempt the liquidator’s judgment…But, I see no reason to think it (Newsday’s archives) has been lost.”

In a statement on January 9, Newsday’s managing director Grant Taylor said "a perfect storm of challenges” led to the company’s closure.

“Newsday is no different in most respects from the other players in the market; this is an industry under severe pressure. But one crucial difference is that, as a stand-alone entity which is not part of a media conglomerate, there is nowhere for Newsday to hide the year-on-year losses all the local daily newspapers are suffering,” he said.

“Whilst the scourge of covid is certainly a factor — as the country shut down more than once, and with it, advertising sales fell off dramatically — that was by no means the only nail in the coffin.

“The elements of this perfect storm are as varied as they are damaging, with no single factor exclusively to blame. This is also not a ‘this just suddenly happened’ scenario, but rather, a symphony of events playing out over a decade,” he added. Taylor acknowledged that the challenge was not unique to Trinidad and Tobago, as traditional print media have long been under pressure globally. “Some challenges have been causes of our demise; others have hastened it,” he said.

Taylor also noted that the cost of raw materials, particularly paper, the largest expense, had soared over the past decade. In addition to this, he said the cost of machinery and its maintenance has also risen sharply. “The world has also changed, and TT is no different. The value placed on traditional media has diminished, and the political campaign to discredit them for nefarious reasons has ramped up,” Taylor said.

He also said when Newsday raised its price by $1, from $2 to $3, 40 per cent of its readership said, “No, thank you.”

“A newspaper entails hundreds of people working every day of the year, and working around the clock, to keep the public informed — but $3 is too much to ask for that service. Advertising revenue has also decreased significantly over the last decade.

“Advertising in all media is a fraction of what it was then, but for print media, that drop has been most severe. Print advertising has fallen by 75 per cent. In the context of the significant increase in costs, this is the most impactful element of the perfect storm that has been brewing over the last decade,” he said.

"Some challenges have been causes of our demise; others have hastened it. We have faced issues that are institutional in nature; every day, the people of TT would have faced comparable challenges.

“Having gone through a lengthy legal battle and been successful all the way to the Privy Council, the company is out of pocket in excess of $3 million. Whilst costs have been awarded in our favour at every level, the company cannot collect those costs until an assessment has been done by the courts. The wheels of justice turn too slowly, and life goes on. And winning in the courts can sometimes be a pyrrhic victory if you have to wait years to get costs, and litigants are allowed to abuse and manipulate the process to the detriment of the other side without recourse, while the company and all employees suffer.

“The industrial-relations climate has always been particularly challenging, from trying to get all interested parties on the same page to rulings that sometimes appeared to discount the financial reality of many companies to the detriment of the organisation and all employees. It would be remiss, however, not to mention that the courts seem to have changed their approach in more recent times. The cost, however, is in the millions and is a challenge for a small company.”

Taylor added, “As we become another statistic in the casualties on the print media landscape, we remain proud of our legacy of unwavering independence in keeping the public informed.

“We are grateful to those who supported Newsday throughout, to longtime readers and those who discovered and came to appreciate the paper’s strengths more recently.

“We are grateful, too, to the dedicated staff of every department who worked every day and night for over two decades, determined that the paper must come out, in the interest of that readership.

“We encourage the people of TT to continue to support our media colleagues and journalists in general. The media are one of the most important elements in any democracy, and it is a telling sign of a democracy itself under threat when the media are under threat.”