Vargas David, now chairman of the board of Euronews, put forward €170 million from his fund to buy the media in 2022 at a time of great financial difficulties. The son of a center-right European People’s Party lawmaker, he was described as someone with genuine interest in European affairs by three people who have worked closely with him.
They also said he was first and foremost a businessman, marked by his years as a McKinsey consultant and as a manager trained at elite French business school INSEAD and the Harvard Kennedy School. As a fund manager, he takes losses seriously, surrounds himself with consultants on strategy (from McKinsey) or public affairs and doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to making tough calls, according to three people who have worked with him.
In 2022, Euronews recorded losses of €15 million in a total revenue of €44 million. A big chunk of this came down to the progressive diminishing of EU subsidies: The Commission used to pour between €20 million to €23 million a year into the company until July 2024 as part of a three-year partnership. That support has dropped to €11 million a year and is now the subject of open competition through a public tender process. “The Commission’s cut in subsidies is a signal of doubts about Euronews,” a European senior executive from the media said.
This created a hole in the company’s revenues, which also has €30 million in losses linked to firing its employees from its original Lyon headquarters, a former employee said.
“At this stage, as a shareholder I would simply be asking myself, where the hell is growth going to come from?” said another senior executive working in the Brussels media world.
“This reliance on EU money means that the company did not sufficiently diversify its sources of income,” a former senior manager from Euronews said.
