United Group

United Group was established in 2007 by the merger of SBB and Telemach from Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to APR data, SBB was founded in September 2000. The website of this group states that the founder of the group and president of the advisory board of the company is Dragan Šolak. In 2013, a senior advisor to the Board of Directors of the SBB-Telemach Group was a former US ambassador to Serbia, Cameron Munter. The following year, the majority owner of the United Group became KKR, the world's leading investment fund based in New York and with a capital of $131.1 billion, which invested in the group together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). After this investment, the group continued to expand, acquiring Grand Production in Serbia (a production company of turbo folk music), the telecommunications operator Telemach Montenegro in 2014, the third largest mobile operator in Slovenia Tusmobil in April 2015, as well as five smaller cable operators in BiH and the majority share of the cable television operator in Bosnia and Herzegovina BHB Cable TV in July 2015. Their cable television station, N1, a subsidiary of CNN in the Balkans, started broadcasting in Serbia in October 2014.

While N1 televisions in the region operate as daughter-companies of Luxembourg based Adria News, most other United Group’s media operate within United Media company. These include, among other, Nova televisions in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as cable TVs Sport klub, Cinemania, Pikaboo and IDJ Kids.

In March 2019, KKR sold the majority share of United Group to a leading international investment company, BC Partners. At that time, it was announced that the former majority owner, KKR, as well as the management team of the United Group, would "retain a significant minority share", but it is not known how many shares remained in the ownership of KKR and the management team at the time, as well as the share of Dragan Šolak. The data submitted to the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media in Serbia show a complex structure of group ownership. United Group is owned by a number of Dutch companies: the direct owner is Adria Midco, owned by Adria Topco, which is further owned by Summer BidCo. The owner of this company is Summer MidCo, and the owner of this company is Summer Parent from Luxembourg.

Three companies have a stake in this company: 55.37% Luxembourg Summer Invest, 28.20% Gerrard Enterprises from the Isle of Man and 8.05% Gerrard MIP from the Cayman Islands. Dragan Šolak has a 99% share in the Isle of Man company and a significant share in the Cayman Islands company.

The majority owner with a 78.65% stake in the company Summer Invest BC European Capital X LP Fund from the British island of Guernsey. No person has a 10% or more stake in the BC European Capital X Fund.

Today, United Group owns dozens of companies and branches in Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece and the Netherlands. The portfolio of this firm includes, among other things, numerous television stations, film and TV production, the Internet, fixed and mobile telephony, cable operators, DTH and OTT platforms, the United.cloud software centre, marketing companies and online commerce companies.

According to the Serbian Business Registers Agency, Dragan Šolak has about 35% share in many companies operating within the United Group. In 2022, Sholak became the leading investor in Sport Republic, a London-based investment firm in the sports and entertainment industry, and in January 2022, Sport Republic bought the football club from the UK Premier League, Southampton FC, followed by the purchase of Goztepe in Turkey in August 2022. According to the Serbian Business Registers Agency, Dragan Šolak has about 35% share in many companies operating within the United Group, so he is the co-owner of dozens of companies in Serbia: SBB, Direct media, D express, United cloud, Grand production, Shoppster, Cas Media, United media production, United group RS, Adria news, Mainstream, Media point, Direct media communications, United media digital, Dan Graf, Mainstream public cloud services, City media, Dansav plaza, Holdco Adria, Netlogic, Techhill plaza, United group network infrastructure, Big print, Fortuna e-sports, Fusion communications, Ali invest, Brainz, Panelcatv, Flamactis, Grand slam group, Hiša plus, TV channel Ultra Beograd (in liquidation), N1 television, Nova S television.

The most successful of these companies during 2022 was SBB, with about EUR 252 million in turnover and almost EUR 35 million in profit. Direct media ranked second in terms of profit with EUR 1.9 million.