Ex-KGB agent buys London newspaper

"The Lebedev family is delighted to be investing in the Evening Standard," he said in a statement issued by the newspaper’s parent company, Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT).

"We are strong supporters of a free and independent press and we greatly admire the Evening Standard as an iconic publication with its pedigree of fine journalism and commentary."

The deal, under which the Associated Newspapers group, DMGT’s newspaper division, will retain a 24.9 percent stake, is expected to be completed by next month. No other newspaper publication owned by DMGT is involved.

DMGT finance chief Peter Williams said the Standard was loss-making, and its revenues had been declining for a number of years. The sum paid for the paper was "truly nominal, totally immaterial, doesn’t matter," he said.

"We got nothing up front," he added.

 

Although many Russian billionaires have made their mark in Britain – most notably Roman Abramovich who owns Chelsea Football Club – it is the first time that one of them has owned a major British newspaper.

 

Lebedev was a member of the Soviet Union’s KGB foreign intelligence services, working under diplomatic cover in London from 1987-1991. He left with the rank of lieutenant colonel and launched a business career which incorporates banking and aviation.

More recently the oligarch, who is a close friend of liberal ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, has become a regular at glitzy London summer parties.

Along with Gorbachev he owns a 49-percent stake in the Novaya Gazeta bi-weekly that fumed against atrocities in the war in Chechnya and was the employer of the assassinated Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya.

The DMGT statement said Associated Newspapers Ltd "has agreed the sale of a majority interest in the Evening Standard for a nominal sum to Evening Press Ltd," owned by Lebedev and his son Yevgeny.

Lebedev will be the chairman of a new company running the newspaper, Evening Standard Ltd, while his son will be senior executive director, it added.

Like other newspapers, the Evening Standard is struggling against the plethora of free news available on the Internet and in give-away papers which rely on advertising for revenue.

The only paid-for city-wide newspaper in the capital, its circulation was 287,000 in December 2008.

DMGT chairman Lord Jonathan Rothermere voiced confidence in the Russian’s ability to steer the newspaper through troubled times.

"I believe that Alexander Lebedev shares my commitment to newspapers and will continue to invest in the Evening Standard. I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that DMGT remains fully committed to journalism and newspaper ownership," he said.

But the editor-in-chief of the paper, Paul Dacre, said: "It’s a very sad day for the paper, it’s a very sad day for the Rothermeres," according to the Guardian, which first broke the story.

The newspaper did not initially run any news on the sale, but in its final edition Wednesday it included a story flagged on the front page, under the headline "New owner and a new future for the Evening Standard."

The Evening Standard deal came after a French court last week gave the go-ahead for a company owned by the son of Russian oligarch Sergei Pugachev to take over the evening newspaper France-Soir.

(AFP/Expatica)