Ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev pays £1 for Indy (Independent taken over by Russian oligarch)

The Times(UK) ^ | 02/28/10 | James Ashton

[TigerLikesRooster]

February 28, 2010

Ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev pays £1 for Indy

Standard owner set to pour millions into ailing Independent newspapers

James Ashton

ALEXANDER LEBEDEV, the former KGB agent turned media mogul, will this week pay a token £1 to take control of The Independent — the same price as buying one copy of the paper from the newsstand. But he will pledge to invest millions in the loss-making title and the Independent on Sunday over five years.

The final hurdle to a sale is close to being overcome this weekend after Independent News & Media agreed to take part of the pain of a 10-year printing deal with rival publisher Trinity Mirror. Lebedev would commit only to five years and INM has now agreed to guarantee the rest. It would have cost £35m to get out of the contract.

Lebedev, who already owns London’s Evening Standard, has struck a separate five-year deal with INM to supply articles to its other newspapers in South Africa and Ireland.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Anti-American former leftwing PM of Germany Gerhard Schroeder works for Gazprom, and now Independent is about to work for Russian oligarch and former KGB agent. The final destination of pinkos: to the arm of KGB brotherhood.

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[ConservativeMind]

Agreed.

[nickcarraway]

Tony O’Reilly has been feeling the pinch. He is no longer counted among Ireland’s billionaires.

[Mr. Jazzy]

“I’d buy THAT for a dolla, ah, er, POUND!!!”

[SmokingJoe]

The Independent has been an America-hating, left wing rag right from when it was founded anyways. They have merely moved to their rightful owners, the communists. Nothing new here. Move along.
I was living in the UK when the Independent was first published. I have read hundreds of issues of that rag. It's a pile of horse poop.

[WKUHilltopper]

Cripes...I would have given them £2 for it...

[nickcarraway]

That is a pretty high price for a (claimed) circulation of 215,000.

[razorback-bert]

I have one, five pound note, I would have paid, cash mind you.

[Enchante]

that’s too much to pay for something worth less than a few sheets of toilet paper

now he will get to waste lots of his own money trying to revive this propaganda outlet

I think this is good news — Lebedev is little different from most of the people running the MSM except that everyone knows of his KGB affinities