Any deal would exclude London Evening Standard, while separate sale of profitable i thought to be open to discussionAlexander Lebedev has asked the founder of the Independent to seek a buyer for the newspaper, its Sunday sister and their cut-price stablemate, the i, 28 years after the daily title was launched.Andreas Whittam Smith, recently appointed as chairman of the publishing company behind the three papers, has been asked to quietly sound out prospective suitors. The titles currently make a loss estimated at £10m a year.They have informally been available for a deal since late 2012, when Lebedev, a former KGB agent, stated publicly that he was looking for an investor to take a minority stake. However it is understood that Whittam Smith's new mandate includes seeking an outright sale of all, or parts, of the portfolio.Any deal would not include the London Evening Standard, which is 76.1% owned by Lebedev, or London Live, the paper's soon-to-launch TV channel for the capital.The jewel in the crown is the profitable i. It was launched in October 2010 and now has a circulation of 300,000. The company is thought to be open to discussions about selling the i separately. But it is not clear what impact its sale would have on the economics of the Independents.Plummeting sales have put the Independent titles in the most precarious position of all the UK's national newspapers.The Independent's average daily sale is about 68,000 copies, but only 50,000 are sold at the full... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]