Founding Founded in 1990 by
Ninoslav Pavić and his partners, Europapress Holding's first publication was the weekly
news magazine Globus. First published in December 1990, Globus was originally devised as a tabloid. Low circulation and financial losses marked its first year in print. However, with the start of the
Croatian War of Independence, Globus instantly shifted its focus and started publishing revealing stories from the front lines. It was the first publication to report war crimes committed by Serbian forces against Croats in Croatia. Later on, in mid and late 1990s, Globus started writing about the shady aspects of privatization in
Croatia,
organized crime and all other topics avoided by the government-controlled media. As such, Globus is credited for introducing investigative and independent journalism in Croatia.
EPH launches Playboy In 1996, Playboy Enterprises and Europapress Holding announced a partnership to launch a new edition of
Playboy magazine in Croatia.
Playboy Croatia officially launched with its February/March 1997 issue. EPH sold its rights on
Playboy,
Cosmopolitan and
Grazia in 2010.
Starting a new daily newspaper In 1998, Europapress Holding decided to start (trans. "morning paper"), a modern daily newspaper with progressive social views. It was launched in April 1998, being the first successful daily newspaper to appear after Croatian independence. It was named after a Zagreb daily that used to circulate before WW2. It quickly took the lion's share of Croatian media market and became one of the most read newspapers in country. Today, its circulation is about 115,000.
Acquisition of Sportske Novosti In 1999, Europapress holding bought
Sportske novosti, the only sports daily in Croatia and one of the leading sports newspapers in Europe. On 30 December 2005
Zvonimir Boban was appointed CEO of
Sportske novosti. Boban resigned from his position in December 2008 due to his long-standing dissatisfaction with the editorial board.
Bomb attack on Pavić On 1 March 2003, a bomb exploded under the car of Nino Pavić, the owner of Croatia's biggest private publishing company Europapress Holding. Pavić was not in the car when the bomb exploded. No one was hurt, but the police investigation failed to trace the attacker or attackers. The attack received worldwide condemnation from other publishers and human rights organizations. The President of World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represents 18,000 publications in 100 countries, wrote a letter to the Croatian government to express serious concern at the attempted murder of press magnate Pavic. The leading human rights and democracy monitoring organization OSCE claimed that the "car bombing targeting Croatian media mogul Pavic was an 'act of terror'".
Acquisition of Slobodna Dalmacija In 2005, EPH launched a buyout bid of more than 540 million kunas (80 million euros) for the popular local daily, . The offer was accepted, and in late 2005 the deal was settled. There were a number of negative reactions and accusations of a potentially monopolistic position the purchase would mean for EPH. has since seen an increase in circulation, now at around 60,000 copies, as well as an updated layout and format.
University North In 2005, EPH was given a permission to start a private Media university in Split by the minister
Dragan Primorac. It was later decided that the Media university relocates to the inland city of
Koprivnica where it started conducting education in the field of media. In 2014 Media university merged with the university of applied sciences in
Varaždin and started operating as the
University North. Former prime minister and current president of Croatia
Zoran Milanović announced that the
University North would become a public national university, which finally occurred in 2015 as the Ministry of science and education passed a law named 'Zakon o prijenosu osnivačkih prava s gradova Koprivnice i Varaždina na Republiku Hrvatsku' and transferred the ownership from cities of
Koprivnica and
Varaždin on to
Croatia. It is the only public university currently operating in the areas of Central and
Northern Croatia Croatia alongside the
University of Zagreb, having around 5500 students. The university continues to provide and develop bachelor, master and doctoral studies in the field of media, however, it provides education in other fields such as traffic and logistics, economics, nutrition, geodesy, construction, electrical and mechanical engineering, recycling, medicine, informatics and more. In the pre-bankruptcy settlement, Hypo Group acquired 90 percent ownership, and 5 percent each was retained by Ninoslav Pavić (until February 26, 2014, 50%) and WAZ Medien (until February 26, 2014, 50%), and Hypo Group sold its share to the company Hanza Press Marijan Hanžeković. Therefore, on 22 December and 30 December 2014, the EPH Assembly appointed a new management board in which President Zrinka Vuković Berić, former Director of Finance and Procurator of the Law Firm Hanžeković and Partners, and members journalist Tomislav Wruss, the initiator of the first ten years of publishing the editor-in-chief of and a few days later Ante Samodol (formerly the President of the management board of the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency). Hanza Media withdrew from the pre-bankruptcy settlement in 2019, as it had complied with all obligations under the settlement, ahead of schedule. This was formally confirmed on February 20, 2020, when the Commercial Court in
Karlovac issued a decision on "deleting the record of approval of the pre-bankruptcy settlement of the subject of registration Hanza Media d.o.o. for publishing ". As part of the settlement, total liabilities in the amount of HRK 497,815,475.98 were settled. == Main editions ==