Setting the record straight on the Cyprus Weekly sale

Sir,
With regard to your latest Coffeeshop tale about The Cyprus Weekly, we would like to set the record straight. Setting aside the vitriolic and spiteful tenor of the article, the contents are simply not accurate.

All three partners, Alex Efthyvoulos, Andreas Hadjipapas and Masis der Parthogh, on behalf of his father, were present at a meeting in March when the offer from Nicos Pattichis the publisher of Phileleftheros, to buy The Cyprus Weekly, was agreed in principle. We fail to understand how this can mean that one of the partners was being kept in the dark as you claim.

A few days later, the two der Parthogh brothers decided to make their own offer for the newspaper, seeking to buy out – at the same price – the shares of the other two families. Several meetings took place and we decided to stick to the original deal with Phileleftheros.

There was no Brutus-style attitude or indeed azoula (envy), as your piece claimed. The brothers were given the latest text of the agreement drafted by the lawyers and had ample time to express their opinions and reactions.
Once again, the claims you make that they were being excluded in some way do not bear any relation to the truth. All three families are now moving to conclude the deal.

These are the simple facts.

– The Cyprus Weekly staff were informed at the appropriate time about the changeover and the Cyprus Union of Journalists and other interested unions have also been informed and have made their own contributions.

– The original shareholders have insisted during the negotiations that the rights of the staff must be protected under the new ownership and would not have gone ahead with the deal if these had in anyway been compromised.
If there is any ‘azoula’ in this matter, we would suggest that it is on your own part.

To suggest that the two families whose names you have blackened in this article were behaving like Turkey is deeply insulting and a totally unnecessary slur.
Yours faithfully,
Alex Efthyvoulos
Andreas Hadjipapas
THE CYPRUS WEEKLY
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The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.