The company, owned by the owners of the TV24 channel and the la.lv portal, is attempting to settle a contractual dispute with the media holding Delfi regarding advertising services on the la.lv portal by filing a petition to declare Delfi insolvent, instead of demanding debt payment through civil proceedings.
The media holding Ekspress Grupp (Estonia), which includes AS Delfi, informed the Tallinn Stock Exchange that it received a court notice regarding a petition filed by SIA "Ekis & Co-Positioning and Consulting" (ECPC) — owned by Rudolf Ekis and Klavs Kalniņš — to declare Delfi insolvent.
Ekspress Grupp emphasizes that this is a regular commercial dispute over contested invoices, which should be resolved through civil law procedures rather than bankruptcy proceedings. The amount of claims is approximately 200,000 euros. For comparison, Delfi's turnover last year was 5.535 million euros, and its net profit was 594,281 euros.
The company notes that the dispute does not affect the daily operations of Delfi, has no significant impact on its financial position or overall activities, nor on the Ekspress Grupp. "Management is taking appropriate legal steps to effectively resolve the situation," the company's statement said.
The notification to the exchange states that Delfi has reasonable doubts and the company has requested to verify the calculation methods used in invoicing ECPC. It also emphasizes that Delfi is fulfilling all its contractual obligations.
ECPC co-owner Klavs Kalniņš told the LETA agency that, in his opinion, filing for bankruptcy is a normal procedure if invoices are not paid. According to him, Delfi has not been paying invoices since the beginning of this year. The amount of debt is measured in hundreds of thousands of euros, although he did not specify exact figures.
Kalniņš also noted that ECPC doubts Delfi's financial condition, including due to the decision to sell 25.48% of the capital of SIA Altero, which manages a financial comparison platform. Therefore, ECPC, according to him, was not sure it could recover the debt by other means besides filing for bankruptcy.
He added that Delfi has been repeatedly asked to pay the invoices, but the company's arguments regarding the situation were, in his words, "inaccurate, incorrect, and even ethically unacceptable." He did not disclose further details.
The Riga City Court confirmed to the LETA agency that the ECPC petition has been received and that proceedings were initiated on Tuesday. According to the Civil Procedure Law, a decision on the bankruptcy petition must be made within 30 days from the date of consideration.
It was previously reported that last year Delfi operated with a turnover of 5.535 million euros, which is 1.1% less than in 2023, while the company made a profit of 594,281 euros, whereas the previous year it recorded losses (according to Firmas.lv).
Delfi was registered in 2000, with a share capital of 3,201,686 euros. It is part of the Ekspress Grupp concern, whose largest shareholders are Estonian entrepreneur Hans Luik (25.86%) and his company HHL Ruhm (47.37%). Ekspress Grupp shares are listed on the official Tallinn Stock Exchange.
The ECPC company, registered in 2013, has a share capital of 100,000 euros and is equally owned by Ekis and Kalniņš. In 2024, ECPC's turnover was 814,166 euros, and its profit was 443,235 euros. Ekis and Kalniņš, through ECPC, are the ultimate beneficiaries of the company TV Latvija, which manages the TV24 channel. In 2020, TV24 became the owner of the portal la.lv.
