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LONDON: A Russian billionaire was on the verge of buying London's Evening Standard newspaper after submitting an improved offer to Lord Rothermere, chairman of the paper's owners Daily Mail & General Trust. An announcement was expected as early as today.
Alexander Lebedev, who had reportedly had a bid for the Standard rejected by Lord Rothermere late last year, was negotiating on a proposal to acquire a 75 per cent plus one share of the business.
Lebedev, 49, is already a media owner in Russia, having founded the news magazine Korrespondent and taken a 49 per cent share in the liberal Moscow-based newspaper Novaya Gazeta which he partly owns with Mikhail Gorbachev.
The paper continues to report on themes the Kremlin-controlled media ignores, including corruption, human rights abuses in Chechnya and the sinister activities of the FSB, Russia's post-KGB spy agency. Its special correspondent Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006 and few doubt her political enemies arranged her execution.
The Standard is a loss-making newspaper but Lebedev yesterday said that his motives in trying to acquire the paper were not financial. "This is not my way to make money but I'd like to explain to the public that newspapers are something they should love and cherish," he said. "Obviously I would be in charge of the financial side", and added he would not play a role in the news content.
If Lebedev's ambitions are successful, the deal would mark a further development in Russian influence over the cultural life of the British capital. Like Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea FC, and Alisher Usmanov, who has a majority stake in Arsenal FC, Lebedev is an avowed Anglophile.
Alexander Lebedev reportedly fell in love with London while working in the city as a spy for the KGB, having been based in the Russian embassy until 1992. More recently he has pursued political ambitions in Russia with limited success, trying and failing to oust the veteran mayor of Moscow, Yury Luzhkov.
Now Lebedev, whose portfolio of business interests includes a 30 per cent stake in Russia's state airline Aeroflot, has turned his attentions to London. According to Forbes magazine, he is Russia's 39th richest man with a net worth of US$3.1 billion ($5.7 billion).
- INDEPENDENT
