Not long ago I wrote fondly of the Independent.co.uk’s move to incorporate Reddit into their website to allow multiple entry points to their content. The headline in the image I used could not have been more accurate.
In three months The Independent’s Debt caught up with it. It now needs $260 million by May of this year to pay off loans or go into default. Too excited indeed.
How’s the site doing? Not too bad actually. If the debt can be eliminated and costs from the print side controlled, maybe they’ll make it! But don’t get too excited.
Russian oligarch and ex-KGB officer Alexander Lebedev, who agreed last week to buy a majority stake in London’s Evening Standard newspaper, is supposedly interested in buying The Independent. Lebedev is currently in the process of buying the Evening Standard from Daily Mail and General Trust Plc.
Lebedev made his money in banking, not as some suspect from his KGB ties… right.
More From Big Media:
Independent News Said to Plan Web Asset Sales, Bond Refinancing -from Bloomberg
Media Group Weighs U.K. Newspaper Sale -from WSJ.com
The Independent – for sale, at £1, to a billionaire willing to lose a fortune -from guardian.co.uk
INM Market Update -from thisismoney.co.uk
UPDATE: 2/2/2009
London Paper Tries to Decipher a Russian Owner – from NYTimes.com
Learn more about lebedev, his family, and their involvement with London daily, The Evening Standard.
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