Government bailout fails to halt losses as New Vision warns of another loss-making year

New Vision Printing and Publishing Company Limited has warned shareholders and investors that it will post a loss for the financial year ending June 30, 2026, extending a run of losses at Uganda’s largest media house that has continued despite a UGX25 billion capital injection from the government.

In a profit warning issued this week and signed on behalf of the board by chief executive officer Don Wanyama, the company said its earnings for the year would be a loss position. It attributed the outcome to a challenging business environment marked by declining traditional newspaper sales and advertising revenue across platforms, compounded by rising prices of raw material inputs and other operational costs. The statement was issued under Rule 38(3) of the Uganda Securities Exchange Listing Rules 2025, which requires listed firms to alert the market when results are expected to differ materially from previous performance.

The warning deepens a pattern that has defined the government-controlled group for several years. Owned 53.3 per cent by the government, New Vision has now recorded losses in three consecutive financial years, and by the count in its own annual reports in four of the last five. The loss for the year to June 2024 more than doubled to Shs11.19 billion from Shs5.46 billion a year earlier, as turnover slid 8.3 per cent to Shs80.3 billion on declines across nearly all business segments. In the year to June 2025 the loss narrowed by 4.3 per cent to Shs9.73 billion, while revenue was broadly flat at Shs80.5 billion, up a marginal 0.17 per cent.

Circulation of print titles has remained the most stubborn drag on the business. Income from newspaper sales, the fourth-largest revenue stream after print advertising, commercial printing and television, fell 11 per cent in the year to June 2025. The publishing segment suffered a sharper collapse, with revenue falling from Shs7.37 billion to Shs1.59 billion after the Ministry of Education and Sports delayed payment for printed instructional materials, leaving an outstanding balance of about Shs2.55 billion. Overall, revenue has retreated from roughly UGX111 billion in 2020/21 to the UGX80 billion range in the years since, a decline management has repeatedly blamed on harsh market conditions and shrinking advertising spend.

It is against this backdrop that the government moved to shore up the company. During the 2024/25 financial year, the state, already the majority shareholder, injected UGX25 billion structured as a preference-share investment intended to stabilise the business and ease liquidity pressure after a stretch of heavy borrowing. Under the arrangement, approved by shareholders at the annual general meeting in October 2024, the government took up 156.25 million preference shares at a par value of Shs160 on non-cumulative, non-redeemable terms. The injection lifted the company’s net assets from Shs49.4 billion to Shs65.4 billion, but it did not close the gap between costs and revenue, and the group continued to post losses.

The latest warning is notable because it points to a reversal in a trend that had briefly appeared to be turning. In the six months to December 2025, New Vision returned a slim net profit of about Shs220.8 million, reversing a loss of Shs856.9 million in the same period a year earlier, helped by an 11.5 per cent cut in the cost of sales as newsprint and ink spending fell. A full-year loss warning therefore signals a marked deterioration in the second half of the year. It also puts the company well short of its own targets: management had set out a plan for the 2025/26 year anchored on a return to profit of about Shs5.27 billion and projected revenue of Shs99.3 billion, a 14 per cent increase that the warning now concedes is out of reach.

Management continues to frame recovery around capital projects funded in part by the government money. At the annual general meeting, board chairman Patrick Ayota said the funds were supporting revenue-generation capacity, including a near-complete printing factory at Namanve intended to double offset printing capacity and expand into high-value packaging. Ayota pointed to new revenue lines through media agency services, courier operations under the Vision Courier brand, and outdoor advertising, describing the investments as long-term bets that would bear fruit in coming years. The turnaround plan also includes installing a Komori Lithrone G37P press, acquiring digital and short-run printing machines, sharpening the group’s digital strategy behind a paywall, and rebuilding the newsroom.

The exact size of the anticipated loss will only be confirmed when the audited full-year results are released, and the warning is directional rather than a final figure. For now, it leaves the board and its majority shareholder confronting an uncomfortable question: whether a state bailout and a heavy programme of capital spending can outrun the structural decline of print, or whether they are simply buying time.