A Russian oligarch and former KGB agent is expected to strike a deal to buy a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard, the Guardian has reported. Alexander Lebedev is to buy 76 per cent of the newspaper with the Associated Newspapers group retaining 24 per cent.
In May last year Forbes ranked Lebedev the world's 358th richest billionaire, with a fortune of 3.1 billion US dollars. His fortune was made mostly through stakes in banking and insurance companies and through Russian airline Aeroflot, in which he has a stake.
Lebedev told the Guardian he had read the Evening Standard and other British newspapers when he was a young spy at the Soviet embassy in London in the late 1980s. He said: "I had to read every newspaper. I was there for that. I had to read the FT, the Guardian, Standard and the Daily Mail."
He said the Standard was "a very good newspaper" with some "brilliant journalists" while the Daily Mail was a "highly influential" paper that closely reflected British public attitudes. Lebedev said he had no intention of interfering in British politics and promised a hands-off approach. "My influence would be next to zero," he said.
