Those said to have made a counter-offer when they learnt that the Financial Gazette had been sold included the State-controlled but publicly listed Zimpapers which publishes The Herald and a consortium led by Information Communication Technology Minister Supa Mandiwanzira.
Gono is reported to have refused to budge despite substantial offers above what ANZ had paid raising speculation that he might have been paid offshore.
There has been totally silence on the deal with the only mention of something happening being in the Financial Gazette itself. But this was described by editor-in-chief Hama Saburi as a forging of “rewarding synergies” between the two organisations in the critical areas of distribution and printing.
Saburi added: “In this environment, if you don’t innovate you will die. We will therefore continue to explore other opportunities similar to what we have been doing whereby we re-configured our distribution and printing arrangements, with amazing outcomes for both partners.
“There is a lot more we can do. We are even looking at changing our location so that our valued customers can do business with us without having to worry about the frustrating congestion and chaos in down-town Harare, where we are currently operating from.
“A key consideration will obviously be to situate ourselves where we can easily converse and coordinate with the providers of essential services to save on time and eliminate logistical nightmares in our day to day activities.
“We are not limiting our horizons; the underlining objective is that of achieving a lean, mean structure, hence we will more than welcome any partnership, synergy or alliance that could bring down costs in terms of rentals, by way of shared services or resources to bring about precision and speed as we navigate the obtaining harsh economic climate.”
Insiders say the changing of location, meant moving from Thomson House where the Financial Gazette was based to Eastgate where ANZ is, while “achieving a lean, mean structure” meant laying off some of the staff.
The move was originally scheduled for beginning of April but was postponed to beginning of this month.
But what has astounded even Financial Gazette workers is the dead silence by competing media such as the Alpha Media Holdings stable and Zimpapers about the deal as the media houses are in competition with ANZ.
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