Changes ahead for Maestro TV
TV company has a new majority shareholder

UPDATED: 5.52pm 

Director General of Tbilisi-based private TV channel Maestro, Baia Gadabadze, has this afternoon announced her resignation.

She said the reason for this decision was because there was a threat Maestro could lose its editorial independence.

Gadabadze said she would not work at the TV channel under the "renewed combination of shareholders” and that a "logical continuation” of the current events was a sign that the channel was losing its independence. 

"A share of the bankrupted company was sold for several millions, which doesn’t have any business logic. The company, which has a 50-million debt, can’t be attractive from a financial point of view,” the director general said.

"The only attraction Maestro TV can have is its political attractiveness”.

Gadabadze added she would continue her duties only until shareholders make a "final decision” about the future of the company. She didn’t specify what decision this would be but the new shareholders had scheduled a meeting for February 4, where it was believed a new director general would be selected.  

EARLIER: 4.31pm

Georgian television channel Maestro has a new majority shareholder.

The National Public Registry announced 55 percent of Maestro’s shares now belonged to one of the channel’s founders Gia Gachechiladze.

Gia Gachechiladze is a former pop star and political activist. He is the brother of Levan Gachechiladze, a politician and businessman who ran as the main oppositional candidate in the January 5 Georgian presidential election in 2008.

In 2009 Gia Gachechiladze – best known by his stage name Utsnobi ("The Unknown") – confined himself to a purpose-built "prison cell" in a Maestro TV studio, from which he broadcast an anti-government reality-TV show. His example inspired the-then opposition to blockade streets outside Parliament and the Presidential Palace in Tbilisi with hundreds of imitation cells.

The other Maestro shareholders, Maka Asatiani had 25 percent shares, Mamuka Glonti had 15 percent ownership and Ekaterine Akobia had five percent shares in the TV company. Asatiani was the one behind all of the recent investments into the TV channel. Glonti was a founder of the channel while Akobia was one of the co-founders and a long-time staff member. 

An extract from the Public Registry said Gachechiladze could not sell 25 percent of his shares without the consent of all other stakeholders.

Previously Kote Gogelia, the husband of Maka Asatiani, owned the majority of the TV company’s shares.

Gachechiladze, who acquired the shares yesterday, planned to "change things for the better” at the television company but added no staff or other changes were planned at this stage.

He said he was "fighting to avoid bankruptcy” of the company.

As you know Maka Asatiani requested the company go into bankruptcy through the court. Now we are talking about reviving the TV channel,” Gachechiladze said.

In September last year Asatiani asked Maestro’s current director general Baia Gadabadze to approach the court and request the television company to go into bankruptcy. The reason for this was because Maestro TV had accumulated significant debts owed to Asatiani herself and the TV channel had no way to pay back the money.

Today Gachechiladze said it was possible Gadabadze would maintain her role as the station’s director general.

Gachechiladze’s lawyer Irakli Kordzakhia said Gadabadze should withdraw her court request, otherwise "a new director will do it”, he said.

One of the reasons Gachechiladze bought the TV company shares was to save Maestro from bankruptcy,” said the lawyer.

Maestro’s founders sold the shares to Gachechiladze through a third-party investor yesterday, explaining they did not want the company to be declared bankrupt.

The investor was revealed as Irakli Rukhadze, the managing director of private equity and venture capital firm Salford Capital Partners Ltd. Maestro's general director claimed Rukhadze was an "unofficial manager" of other local TV company Imedi.

All of the company’s four shareholders will meet on February 4 to discuss the future of the TV channel.