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Media
Lebedev buys The Independent
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 26 March 2010
After months of negotiations, Evening Standard owner and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev yesterday confirmed he had bought The Independent. He got the struggling British broadsheet for a pound, but will take on the firm’s liabilities. Well, some of them. Actually current owners Independent News & Media will contribute over £9 million to Lebedev’s new company Independent Print Limited to help pay off some of the paper’s debts.
As previously reported, when one of INM’s big shareholders tried to force the Irish media firm to shut The Independent down last year the firm’s management said it would be more expensive to close the title than keep it open. With that in mind, presumably £9 million is an OK sum of money to pay to have the problem taken off INM’s hands.
Lebedev’s purchase of The Indy has been such a long-time coming, staff there have already been preparing for the new ownership. That said, it remains to be seen what the new proprietor will do with the paper, which has the smallest circulation of all the British dailies and which many expected would bite the dust this year until the Russian started to negotiate a takeover.
Given what Lebedev did with the Standard, there has been wide speculation that he will make The Indy a free morning title distributed in key cities to commuters, though he reportedly denied that was a plan during a conversation with Gordon Brown recently. Certainly any move to make The Indy a proper free title (actually, they already give away thousands of copies a day) would be a bold move that could potentially transform the UK newspaper market.
Confirming the deal, which should be completed in May, INM CEO Gavin O’Reilly told reporters: “This is a most satisfactory and positive outcome for the titles, their staff and for INM’s shareholders. I wish IPL and the staff every success for the future in continuing the development of these important and influential titles”.
