Dart Group acquires Compass Media
(CNS): After months of speculation, the acquisition of Compass Media by Dart has been confirmed by both parties. In a report in the islands’ oldest private news organisation on Wednesday, James Bergstrom, who purchased the media house just over four years ago, said he had sold it to Dart Media and Entertainment, which appears to be a newly formed company, subject to the necessary regulatory approval.
Bergstrom sold the commercial print business in January and restructured the company after he acquired it from David and Vicki Legge. According to the Cayman Compass, Compass Media’s flagship publication, this was to “survive the dramatic changes over the last few decades”, such as the shift from print to digital technology and the explosion in social media as the main source of news for many consumers.
However, the paper’s survival has remained in doubt, and Bergstrom has now agreed to sell the business to Dart. “Over the past five years, I have sought to continue the Cayman Compass’ long-standing role as an upholder of our well-run democracy and an important pillar of the community, while ensuring financial stability in an evolving media landscape,” Bergstrom said Wednesday.
“While I am grateful to have been a steward for the Compass and its long legacy of independent journalism, it’s an opportune time to hand the baton to an investor that shares that long-term vision for the broader Compass Media… Dart has displayed that long-term commitment to invest, even during challenging economic times, which makes them ideal partners to take Compass Media into the future,” he added.
On its website, Dart said it was committed to protecting the integrity of the company while providing financial stability.
“We are committed to building on the solid foundation that has been laid since the Compass was founded more than a half century ago,” said Dart CEO Mark VanDevelde. “We are steadfast in our determination to ensure the integrity of this important institution is protected. We will avail ourselves of relationships with industry leaders in local and international media, supporting the Compass as it continues to play its important role for decades to come.”
Dart, the Cayman Islands’ largest property and asset owner, as well as the country’s largest investor, has not said what plans it has for the news organisation, including the radio stations that come with the sale.
Dart has also not said whether or not there will be any redundancies. In 2020, as the COVID lockdown hit, the paper laid off over a dozen workers, citing its struggles to remain viable in a social media world, compounded by the pandemic.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Fully expect the nasty Dart management wannabes to bring their toxicity to the Compass. Thoughts are with the current Compass staff.
The Cayman Dart culture is very toxic
It is, Randall.
That’s it; I am going to stop buying the Compass. Oh wait – I stopped that about a decade ago. Zzzzzz
Little Cayman’s power generation is only just holding on. Will Compass be able to report when LC is left in darkness? Cayman’s elite will be very unhappy. Come on Mr Dart if you invest in something at least try to improve it.
It’s got to be better than that mentally deranged psycho I hear screaming from
CMR “towers” every morning!
I’ve lived here for many years, but I don’t listen to her. You can do the same, you know?
Can’t, she is my neighbour. Try living in my world for a week!
Yup, nothing but Dart stories in today’s edition.
This was simply to gobble the property up to stave off Cricket Square’s endgame of expanding to that junction. Just an opportunity that presented itself.
If Dart is so great Where is Dart wing at the Hospital or old folks home or facilities for the mentally challenged. He needs to give back to the country and not those tiny parks. This man is seriously wealthy.
Right next to the ALT wing and the Kirkomnell library.
Dont you understand they are poor compared to him
Don’t you understand THEY made all their money here. He made it elsewhere.
Part of the problem is people expecting some form of supposedly altruistic philanthropy from the likes of those who modus operandi has and continues to be to monopolize the entirety of Cayman’s economy from cradle to grave and that in itself is an unwise perspective to take. To do so is the mentality of the indoctrinated, the subjugated, the bullied and the ignorant. This mentality smacks of the effects of the symptoms associated with the Stockholm Syndrome.
Does one need to be reminded that the likes of Pablo Escobar was also known for supposedly altruistic philanthropy/charity in order to solidify his illegitimate power/influence and that this was nothing more than a means to an end in order to fulfill his nefarious agenda?
Does one and/or all not realize that when a country, a place and/or a people allow one entity to own/control such a huge percentage of any given economy, land mass et al that that in itself is a recipe for the destruction of any semblance of a valid, sustainable and workable economy beyond the fallacy of hollow rhetoric and propaganda?
Have a nice day at Camana Bay, one can only hope that the consequences of giving loyalty to the likes of a pseudo-imperialist, monopolistic and vulture capitalist is worth it to those for whom even the simplest of truths remain willfully ignored at the expense of all and sundry.
The time for the introduction of anti-trust legislation designed for the Cayman context and vigorously enforced in order to not only reflect but also counteract the clear and present dangers involved was about two decades ago.
Instead of the preservation of the concept and/or implementation of good governance by the past and/or present leadership/administration of the Cayman Islands, either elected and/or colonial, what Cayman has been unjustly saddled with and subjected to is collusion with, and far worse, those for whom the Cayman Islands in her and our entirety is but a mark to be exploited.
That took sand to say that Mr. Johnathan. Had I nearly as much, I would also sign my name. Much respect.
When your comments are so loaded with unnecessary words that I have to get ChatGPT to summarize it for me:
The post criticizes the expectation of altruistic philanthropy from entities that monopolize the economy. It draws a parallel to Pablo Escobar’s deceptive charity work and highlights the destructive consequences of allowing one entity to control a significant portion of the economy. The post calls for the implementation of anti-trust legislation in the Cayman Islands and criticizes the lack of good governance and collusion.
Have you not noticed the new building (hospital) being built right next to CIS?!? He will make money from it but he his still building it unlike many generational Cayman families.
Health City is building it and leasing the land from dart.
But they are building a hospital and they donated the land for the hospice.
Anti-trust legislation has been (and still is) needed in the Cayman Islands, particularly protecting the Cayman Islands jurisdictions’ commercial-business environment and to ensure a proper socio-economic balance.
It’s coming to a boiling point, where Parliament will, at the very least, need to give serious consideration of enacting anti-trust legislation for the Cayman Islands.
I am not specifically commenting on the sale of the Compass Media, just merely emphasizing generally that serious consideration needs to be given to anti-trust legislation in the Cayman Islands.
Many other countries and jurisdictions have anti-trust legislation, which serves them well, so why should the Cayman Islands not have a future Anti-Trust Act?
My two cents, for what it’s worth!
Good governance is not on the MP dockets – because it doesn’t pay! Still no voters willing to openly endorse a petition to ban convicted felons from office. Too scared to have their home set ablaze or befall some other “random” tragedy from our thuggery.
Sad situation when CMR looking more legit every day
Hmmmmm.. .interesting comments. . .but he who controls the media controls the social and plotical narrative. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but this is the first step of a “take over”. Something’s definately brewing.
No, this is not the first step. Compass has whiffed of Dart for so long I actually thought it was done already. This just makes it official.
Local papers are dying everywhere, its not just in Cayman. The economics no longer work. It is hard to maintain a large staff of reporters and editors when advertising revenue has dwindled to a trickle (with so many other effective forms of advertising available).
CNS is good for a few headlines, but the Compass also covers other matters such as sports, some lifestyle stories, business stories etc. So the Compass, or an equivalent, is still needed in Cayman.
I doubt the Compass would have survived without Dart. Very similar to, on a much larger scale, the North Sound golf course. Dues and green fees arent cheap, but Dart surely has negative cash flow or at best, break even, upkeeping the course. If that prime land was turned into residential plus commercial development, it is worth hundreds of millions.
Your mind wanders…..I’d like to hang with you
To control a government, first control the media.
The Washington Post is personally owned by Jeff Bezos and yet sometimes criticize Amazon. But every time there’s a possible conflict of interest the Washington Post reminds the reader that Bezos is the owner.
I doubt that Dart will permit such journalistic integrity.
Which MP will dare to stand up to Dart if it means being under attack for any minor issue and no reporting of any good you do?
Who will criticize that monster bridge over West Bay Road? Who will demand the old Hyatt eyesore is torn down as a condition of planning approval? Even the members of the CPA will fear Dart’s wrath.
You are currently posting on the remaining site which embodies journalistic integrity. It’s part of why it is so very important to support CNS as much as we can.
Imagine a Cayman Islands without CNS, and having to wonder of the veracity of the news reported. CNS makes certain we know when an editorial is their opinion. We must never lose that freedom of expression.
The musings of a vulture capitalist feeding on Cayman carrion.
I own the West Indian Club
I own vast swathes of property
I own hotels
I own restaurants
I own a data centre
I own a town
I own a school
I own the air waves
I own a liquor distributor
I own the dump
I own 7-Mile Beach
I own an electric utility company
I own a media company
I own a formidable legal team
Hell yeah, I practically own the Cabinet
What I don’t own I finance covertly
I plan to own Cayman…
I plan to own Cayman… almost there.
I own an 18 hole golf course ( and I choose to price a round out of the reach of most Caymanians & residents ).
Build your own and set your own rates if you think you can turn a profit.
Personally I want to own a strip club
Personally I want to own the sand bar
You forgot I own the company that provides all the concrete on the island for all the new buildings and the quarries that provide the fIll once the mangroves are cleared.
I have two tunnels that serve no purpose whatsoever.
At least the Blossom Village Daily News in Little Cayman is still Independent!
The entirety of LC is being bought by greedy developers, but its the newspaper you raving about?
Dart buying up CB and LC too. watch this space….
the South Sound Tribune will have more credibility now…
With luck it’ll work better for Compass that the purchase of Cayman Brac Power & Light. Since the handover Brac electricity goes off at least weekly rather than every few months as before. Retirement was forced on half a dozen experienced long serving employees some with little notice. The company is in chaos with very low morale. Certainly not a good look for Dart.
Same management, no?
Difference is Dart doesn’t realise what is really going on in the plant. They need to ask the workers not the manager!
Don’t worry the Dart team will send over one of the senior vice presidents for development & planning who will straiten it all out with a bunch of imported foreigners!
Hopefully they send some English teachers at the same time.
and the Dart VPs will drive around with the school teacher getting misinformation, really shocked at how easily Dart can be mislead. Maybe OfReg needs to investigate.
Ages of those recently retired? You don’t get to work to 80 and complain there are no jobs for young Brackers in the same breath.
this place a joke…money..greed and power struggles have destroyed us!….and the circus continues….i a native…but mindful of other options when sh…t hit ceiling here…zzzz
Welcome to the Cayman Islands, the best place money can buy!
compass means nothing and has not meant anything for many years.
this is charity from dart and will actually save jobs
Dart doesn’t do charity for charity’s sake. There is a political strategy behind this and anyone who doesn’t understand that is a fool. Good timing to prepare for influencing the next election. Look for the online version to become more active and accessible in the lead up to the election. He wants your hearts and minds.
Dart should pay non employees $200 a day to open his corporate flyer. Pay for that time we would waste giving any attention to it.
Just another reason to not pay any attention to that “publication”, not even worth its value as compost.
For years the Compass has had no value other than the prime real estate in George Town. Nothing has changed, other than the owners of the real estate.
Who now owns the ‘prime real estate’ may give some further insight into this deal.
Nobody should be surprised. It’s just confirmation of the strong editorial bias that has permeated that media institution post Legge. An in-house propaganda and marketing instrument spewing its own garbage for its own purpose. All Dart, all the time, for anyone (ex-Dart) still listening. Why would anyone pay their own money to subscribe to that?
Dart has owned the Compass since Uzzell anyone who thinks the Legges or Bergstrom paid for that business are being naive (just nominees). There hasn’t been a negative Dart story in the Compass since then.
If government allows this to happen, it would be a symbolic hand over of control of our country to Dart. Most first world countries have antitrust legislation limiting the amount of control a business can purchase. Speak out now people and let your elected officials know that enough is enough.
The Compass died awhile ago. This is just the wake announcing it was sick.
@8:13:
Generally anti-trust legislation is aimed at preventing one person or entity from holding a monopoly in any one industry. This would not prevent the purchase as the Compass group is already established and has competitors. It would applu if the Compass group started to merge with or buy out the competition.
No matter, we have no such legislation.
It all depends on how the legislation is worded.
Who is going to stop it ? They all got campaign donations from Uncle!
Ain’t nobody can’t match infinite money and decades of patience. It’s a kind of reverse entropy that is fascinating to watch.
Dart’s resources are most certainly finite, which is why they couldn’t resist the temptation to shore-up the news flow to play political king maker, control local narrative, and turn their stake and investor’s story around. Problem is, they’ve now revealed that the paper is officially contaminated with corporate editorial bias. Smart readers won’t continue to pay for that. Inherited money does not confer loyalty, acumen, savvy, or a knowledge of history and similar media case studies.
next, rename to Dart Island. We are all his serfs now.
While this is probably the only way for Compass to survive it’s not great for the largest company on island to own the largest newspaper. I like CNS but it’s only one person. Same I believe with Loop and Caymanian times. CMR always first on the story but not a legit news organization.
This is like Donald trump or Joe Biden owning all the major newspapers in the US. Nothing keeps dart in check anymore
@7:53 Is it really the same as Trump or Biden owning the major newspapers?
Has Dart been elected to the highest position of public office?
Weak comparison. Try again.
One does not need to be elected if one holds the elected in one’s own back pocket as bought and paid for shills.
He controls the news, the economy and the politicians. He doesnt need to be elected. His minions will soon be agitating for independence.
CMR is always first because gov workers illegally leak her all the info…
I’m sure the other media receives leaks as well, but they have journalistic integrity to obtain corroborating evidence and sufficient links to protect their sources. CMR just posts immediately (unless it’s anti-PACT, in which case she sits on it instead).
The Camana Bay Times is a quite good paper. The Compass will be in good hands.
Quite good my ass (for wiping).
So Bergstorm destroys the paper and sells it to the one group apart from government that desperately seeks to influence the news
we live in a banana republic
Berg-storm…like it!
What kind of business person buys a newspaper in this day and age. Like did he think it was a good idea?
In all honesty, he actually did.
One who wishes to influence the weak minded.
With all the negative comments from your readers about Dart. Howany of them visit and enjoy the facilities at Camana Bay, his parks and businesses he owns?
We forget Dart himself moved here in the mid/late 80’s. Got stays in early 2000’s. So really hes a Caymanian now.
We complain the foreign investors are buying up the island, well our forefathers sold their land, like on SMB,back them they believed the beach was sh@t and wanted to build inland.
Personally, we needed another billionaire (we had none) and or multi millionaire Caymanian, wait we didn’t have one that would invest into the island, all the millionaire Caymanian were to busy buying properties in Miami and selling their lands to developers. Ask yourself has dart with his businesses hired Caymanians, trained Caymanians, donated millions to to our local charities, how many Caymanians also have become very wealthy because of him, I personally know several, these Caymanians have worked their @sses off, had the opportunity and run with it, as well as made a lot of money.
It’s not Darts fault we have poverty in the island, not his fault we Caymanians are jealous of each other and definitely not his fault we like to put each other down and don’t like to see each other succeed. It’s our fault!
Maybe we should look at other forgien investors that don’t like to hire Caymanians and train us!
Lastly, I don’t work for Dart my business gets nothing from him, I have a local business supported by locals and hire over 70% Caymanians but again we have to honest with ourselves occasionally. Do hate, let’s try and work hard together not against each other.
This is one example of how people do not understand the bigger picture. If you think Dart does not cause poverty on the island, i have some seven mile beach imported sand to sell you.
Dart is very near single handedly causing the price of construction to soar, delays to continue, as his group monopolize purchasing, logistics, employees, etc, etc, etc. It is not to say that his product isn’t great (mostly), it is simply the situation – you try to get a sub contractor to come look at your electrical problems or carpentry, and you’ll either have to pay ridiculous amounts or wait…and Dart is the largest cause of it. It all trickles down – not the profit – the costs increasing.
Dart would just as easily sit here and not build anything, all it is at the end of the day is a self-financing, circle jerk of internal accounting increasing the values of his own properties with little care whether they are successful or not, its all about book value.
if you disagree, show me anywhere else where schools are built next to a dump and derelict buildings are callously left in plain view
Dart overspends, overbuilds, over procrastinates and couldn’t give a monkeys whether we like it or not
One of the most incoherent comment I have read. Pure pseudo babble.
@9:23am – Your word salad is very hard to understand.
9:30 am — Were you drunk when you typed this? Unless this is written in cryptographic code, it is very difficult to make sense to anyone. Not even a cryptanalyst, like Alan Mathison Turing, could decipher this.
I agree, and lets see where this goes, if it turns into a Dart propaganda rag, then people wont read it, but if it stays as a good source of journalism, with a secure long-term future then so much the better.
Dart has not been held accountable for what they have done because they are protected from any accountability due to an illegitimate power and influence over the narrative itself. That is what monopolists do, including making it either illegal or otherwise prohibitive to expose them for what they have really done. On the bright side for you, I’m sure you could find a job with them in their expanding propaganda wing. Just tell them Unky Joseph Goebbels sent you. They like him.
3:08 I take it you think he did all that to benefit Cayman and Caymanians. I think not.
No surprise here, he’s probably been financing it for years. Let the Dart propaganda wagon roll.
My problem is, I don’t trust Dart.
Forget the media house, read the article.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/13/the-media-are-rife-with-hidden-agendas-thats-why-i-choose-the-guardian
Hahaha – The Guardian have plenty of agenda of their own
Dart said it was committed to protecting the integrity of the company
That shouldn’t be too difficult a task.
Wow. That’s one way to take control of the narrative. Putin would be envious. Enough is enough.
I wonder if they’ll ever run stories critical of Dart? 🤣
They dont now.
No one is asking questions why dart needs to own two media companies, hurleys and compass.
Once you own the CIG and own the news outlets you can control and filter the population in a whole context.
Darts probably spending so much on Advertising, it’s probably just cheaper in the end.
Dart said they wouldn’t lay off anyone at Brac Power and Light either.
The best of the lot are gone.
Please just retire the manager.
Are you jealous that he’s multi-talented and successful businessman in his own right?
Wow
The best of the lot! – Ha Ha! do you mean all the old folks sitting in the office doing absolutely nothing?!
No actually, I mean the experienced gentlemen from the plant and linesmen. Only the school teacher needs to go.
This is really good news.
Some recommendations
Cancel the dreadful Res Hour
Bring back
Print news paper 5 Days a week
News 27
Day break
Election coverage
Introduce
Game show
Investigative journalism
Hard hitting editorial
Spot light on good news.
Yes let’s have darts people investigate his own doings, I’m sure those will be some hard hitting stories ……
Thank whatever god you believe in for the ladies at CNS! Without them there would be no news that wasn’t unbiased by big money. Remember when one owner of the Compass said there was corruption in the Cayman Islands..? He was almost linched…by coloured people! “Oh the humanity”.
CNS the last bastion of free press in the Cayman Islands. Long may it thrive.
Oh yea ! Tell me something new .
Meh. The Compass has become nothing more than a chamber of commerce cheerleading rag.
The in-depth investigations dried up. No news is good news, right?
Jimmy cracking corn tonight.
Get ready for the pro-dart propaganda to be rammed down our throats!!
I’d rather read the news on marl road… wait I take that back. I can’t believe I just said that. I feel dirty.
Page out of China’s playbook – 3 words: State.Run.Media.
This little rock belongs to uncle DART now.