UK News
Russian oligarch buys British newspaper
Jan 21, 2009, 9:48 GMT
London - Russian billionaire businessman Alexander Lebedev has bought a controlling share in London's Evening Standard newspaper that has suffered sliding sales, its publishers confirmed Wednesday.
Lebedev, 49, had been reported to have offered to buy a 76-per-cent share in the paper, one of the oldest in Britain.
Its owners, The Daily Mail & General Trust, said it had agreed to the sale of a majority interest in the paper to Lebedev, who also owns a 30-per-cent stake in Russian airline Aeroflot and, in 2006, bought Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta with ex-leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Lebedev, whose fortune is estimated at 3.1 billion dollars, has said that his deep knowledge of British newspapers goes back to the time when he was assigned to the ex-Soviet embassy as a spy in London in the 1980s.
The Standard, which belongs to Associated Newspapers, has a circulation of 285,000, down from 500,000 at its peak.
COMMENT
blog comments powered by DisqusLatest Headlines in UK
- 1. Cambridge beat Oxford in 158th Boat Race after midway halt
- 2. Gas flare at Total's North Sea platform self-extinguishes
- 3. A myth turns 100: Titanic still fascinates world
- 4. Source of North Sea platform gas leak located, says Total
- 5. Efforts under way to stop gas leak on North Sea platform
Older Talkback
