Lebedev hints at Indy purchase

London Evening Standard owner Alexander Lebedev has hinted that he is “in the picture” to buy the Independent and Independent on Sunday.

Lebedev, who acquired a 74.9% share in the London Evening Standard earlier this year, openly expressed an interest in the loss-making titles but said “I don’t want to multiply my problems”.

“It would be interesting and we are inside the picture,” Lebedev told Media Week. “But they have certain issues to be resolved.

“There exist synergies between the two newspapers. You have to ask yourself does The Independent have an audience and a niche and do you have to take tough decisions, like redundancies?”

Lebedev met with Independent News & Media’s chief executive Gavin O’Reilly last week to discuss the possible deal.

Although INM hasn’t officially confirmed that the Independent titles are on the market, the publishing group needs to raise funds to pay off its €1.4 billion debt.

Last week, INM secured a further extension to its financial standstill deal with its investors in order to give it more time for debt restructuring (see INM to secure third standstill deal).

The group also announced the sale of its 18% stake in gambling group Cashcade for £13.2 million to digital group PartyGaming (see INM offloads Cashcade asset).

Lebedev is expected to buy the two Independent titles for a nominal sum but it is thought the sale will still go along way in helping to alleviate INM’s financial situation.

INM reported a full-year pre-tax loss of €161.4 million for 2008 compared with a €284.8 million profit for 2007 (see INM reports €161.4m loss).

The company said its 2008 losses were mainly due to a €373.1 million exceptional charge – €290.9 million of which related to INM’s decision to write down the value of its newspaper assets amid the economic downturn.

In the latest ABC release, the Independent was down 2% period on period and suffered a large year on year decline of around 14%, leaving its total circulation at around 200,000 copies (see ABC National Newspaper Round-Up: June 2009).

The Independent on Sunday continued to struggle as well and suffered the highest percentage decline in the overall Sunday market, after losing almost 5,000 copies, a 3% period on period downturn, to 162,000 copies in total.

The Sunday quality title also witnessed a significant year on year drop of 22.5%, a real term loss of more than 47,000 copies.