UPDATE: Former Academia Catavencu editorial team releases new paper called Catavencii

UPDATE 2: As it was to be expected, the team of the Academia Catavencu left the newspaper after the public bidding was won by Claudiu Padurean, journalist at the newspaper Romania Libera, who was acting on behalf of Dan Adamescu, owner of the Romania Libera newspaper.

The former team, still lead by editorial manager Doru Buscu, will appear under a new name, Catavencii and with a new president, poet and political analyst Mircea Dinescu, according to paginademedia.ro

In fact, Dinescu has already appeared with his former colleagues in a video that announces and promotes the new publication.

The new paper will reportedly be released under the umbrella of Adevarul Holding, which is owned by businessman Dinu Patriciu. However, Patriciu has not yet confirmed this information.

During the second public bidding, Academia Catavencu sold for EUR 882,659 (711.822 euro +TVA), which is nearly half the sum for which the brand sold the first time.

The bidding was won by Claudiu Padurean, journalist at the newspaper Romania Libera, represented by lawyer George Dumitru.

The other bidder was Orlando Nicoara, general manager of Mediafax Group. Nicoara could not be contacted by Business Review for a comment.

Padurean was reportedly acting on behalf of Dan Adamescu, owner of the Romania Libera newspaper. During the previous bidding, Adamescu was represented by another journalist from Romania Libera, Sabina Fati.

Doru Buscu, the editorial manager of Academia Catavencu, who won the first bidding for a sum of EUR 1.6 million (VAT included), but did not manage to come up with the entire sum, did not participate in this bid at all. See more on the first bidding here.

This time also, the bidding started from the same sum EUR 149,322, no VAT, and each new bidder introduced EUR 7,500 when placing a new bid.

In an editorial piece written on Monday, June 13, Buscu wrote: “I would like for him (ed. note: the new owner) to be called Adrian Sarbu and not Dan Adamescu,” also implying the fact that the editorial team may leave the publication. “Even if we, those who are writing the magazine now, will not write it from next week, please don’t stop reading it,” he said.

According to Buscu, currently Academia Catavencu sold in 21,000 copies, which is close to the circulation of the magazine when it appeared on the market in November 1991. However, there were times when Academia Catavencu sold much better: in the mid 90s the magazine sold 120,000 copies while in June 2010, after a decrease, it sold in 26,000 copies.

Otilia Haraga