MediaToday, the media company that runs MaltaToday and Illum, has confirmed that it turned down a request by Steward Health Care to buy it out three years ago.

In two articles today, MaltaToday and Illum said that in 2021, Steward’s CEO Armin Ernst had tried to buy out their parent company but they chose not to sell.

“It has to be noted that over the past years and from the start of the Vitals and Steward saga, the editorial position adopted by the newspapers belonging to MediaToday have been very critical of the government deal with Vitals and Steward,” they wrote.

“Last year, Steward sued MediaToday for libel in the Spanish court in Madrid over reports that appeared in MaltaToday and asked for thousands of euros in damages. This case is ongoing.”

The newspapers spoke out in response to an article by Mark Camilleri who claimed that former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri owns 25% of Illum through a company called Innovate Business Consulting Ltd.

Regarding that allegation, MediaToday said that in 2011 a business decision was taken to pass on the title of Illum to Innovate Business Consulting, represented by Jonathan Cardona and Louis Cardona, for 18 months.

They said that after this agreement, Innovate Business Consulting “appears to have made” another agreement with other companies involved in the printing industry, including one owned by Keith Schembri, who had a 25% share in this agreement.

“This happened 13 years ago in 2011 when none of these companies or individuals involved remotely had a political posting or connection with one party or another,” they said.

“This commercial arrangement ended because of disagreement between the investors and MediaToday and the newspaper title passed back to MediaToday. At no point in 2011 or afterwards was there any payment or transaction between the parties.”