New Vision Printing and Publishing Company Limited remains profitable, solvent, and fully compliant, according to the Auditor General’s 2024 report.
Whereas Auditor General Edward Akol gives the media conglomerate a “fair view of the financial position,” beneath the unqualified opinion lies a story that reports flags such as a UGX1 billion impairment loss on intangible assets, a growing UGX4.9 billion provision for expected credit losses and a financial model that assumes receivables are collected in 150 days – yet, the recovery rate for sampled debts was just 39%.
Add to that the presence of UGX3.7 billion in debts older than two years, and what emerges is not a crisis, but what auditors describe as a “risk of understatement of the expected credit losses provision” and a call for “realignment of assumptions” in the credit model.
This isn’t a scandal. It isn’t even failure. But it is, as the report implies, a form of operational drift – a company whose financial architecture is quietly diverging from the commercial realities it faces.
When assets lose their voice
The headline figure here isn’t profit – it’s a UGX1 billion impairment on intangible assets, echoing a similar markdown of UGX1.7 billion in 2023, as disclosed in Note 19 of the company’s financial statements.
In a content-driven business like New Vision’s, intangible assets often represent the company’s intellectual property: publishing rights, software licenses, editorial systems, or digital platforms.
To impair them, under IAS 36, means management has concluded that these assets will not generate the economic benefits previously expected.
Put plainly: ‘what was once considered valuable is now seen by both the company and auditors as diminished.’
This isn’t a routine adjustment. It’s a strategic red flag. As the Auditor General notes, the impairment was calculated using discounted cash flow models, terminal value estimates, and value-in-use calculations – a rigorous process triggered only when assets are suspected of underperforming.
That is telling. It signals not just declining asset value, but long-term commercial assumptions that are no longer holding up.
Whether due to shifts in media consumption, digital monetisation challenges, or underused software investments, New Vision’s impairment disclosures suggest a business model being quietly recalibrated.
Credit control or credit illusion?
The more immediate concern, however, is credit risk – and it’s not theoretical.
The company is owed money, a lot of it. As of June 30, 2024, New Vision had UGX4.9 billion in expected credit losses on trade receivables, up from UGX3.8 billion in 2023, according to Note 22 of the financial statements and the Auditor General’s summary.
But the real alarm isn’t just in the rising provision. It’s how the provision is being calculated.
The Auditor General’s review flagged a critical flaw: the company’s internal expected credit losses model assumes receivables are recovered within 150 days (five months).
Yet, in reality, this assumption is extremely remote from how clients behave.
Only 39% of the sampled debts were collected, and UGX3.7 billion worth of receivables were more than two years old.
That’s not just a miscalculation but a disconnect between financial modelling and market behaviour.
When your model assumes clients pay in five months, but they take two years, or never pay at all, your forecasts become conservative and often misleading.
This disconnect means New Vision is likely overstating the quality of its receivables, which in turn inflates the strength of its balance sheet and distorts perceptions of future cash flows.
The Auditor General advised that “management should review and refine the assumptions used in the expected credit loss model… to better reflect actual collection trends.”
Inside Uganda’s Property Market: Broll Uganda’s Moses Lutalo on Sector Realities and the Signals Investors Can’t IgnoreUntil that happens, the company’s reported earnings may be resting on optimistic accounting rather than operational certainty.
The missing discipline
If the expected credit losses issue exposes fragility in New Vision’s customer relationships, another audit finding points to operational slack in its back office: supplier statement reconciliations aren’t being done as often-or as rigorously as they should.
According to the Auditor General’s report (Section 3.0, Other Matters), the finance department does not regularly carry out reconciliations between suppliers’ statements and the company’s internal accounting records.
Management claimed they circularize and reconcile quarterly, but the Auditor General noted monthly reconciliations – particularly before financial reports are prepared – are necessary.
Why does this matter? Because when supplier balances and company books don’t match, it opens the door to duplicate payments that quietly drain cash, unrecorded liabilities that distort financial clarity, and disputes that fray vendor relationships, especially critical ones.
And in a low-margin business like publishing, even small oversights can snowball into expensive inefficiencies. In short, this is not just a bookkeeping issue – it’s a control risk.
The longer these lapses persist, the harder it becomes to trust the accuracy of what New Vision owes – or doesn’t.
Whispering numbers
To the untrained eye, New Vision is in good health. It’s profitable. It meets IFRS. It satisfies audit expectations. But that’s not the full story.
A deeper read shows a company carrying impaired assets, misjudging how fast it will get paid, and struggling to enforce internal financial discipline.
These are symptoms of a business that risks drifting away from relevance if nothing changes.
A legacy giant in a shifting landscape
New Vision is more than just a public company. It’s a national institution – government’s flagship publisher, a household name, and a historical cornerstone of Uganda’s media ecosystem.
But the ecosystem has moved on.
Globally, print revenues are shrinking, digital monetization remains elusive, and legacy business models are under strain.
And as the Auditor General notes, a strong balance sheet isn’t enough if it rests on brittle assumptions.
Right now, New Vision’s assumptions about the value of its intangible assets, how fast it collects debts, and how tightly its operations are run no longer fully reflect reality.
This, the Auditor General advises should be recalibrated by instituting actaulised credit risk models – not idealized ones – reassessment of intangible asset, especially where impairment is recurring and revenue returns are fading, institutionalize monthly supplier reconciliations as basic hygiene, not a luxury and perhaps most crucially, shift the boardroom conversation from reporting compliance to building financial resilience.
At crossroads
The Auditor General didn’t indict New Vision—but underlined a message: “You are still in the black. But if these small leakages aren’t fixed, that black ink might turn red—quietly, slowly, and dangerously.”
