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All we need to know is that the new owners are free-market loving anarchists who will prop up the bent Capitalist system to the end...looks like it will be more lies and spin then!

Tuesday. Doing so well until "banker-style" crept into penultimate paragraph.

I used to read the Standard, and it used to have some decent editorial content, but now the overall number of pages and editorial quality has declined and the amount of advertising has increased to such an extent that I don't bother any more. It's just turning into yet another version of London Lite or the Metro, filled with entertainment and no news.

More 'jonnie foreigners' interfering with every aspect of our nation and telling us all what to do.

The British are not now in control of our own destiny.

The good news is that when we've finanally been ruined to the state of a third world country - we'll eventually and probably, then - Do something about it?

I read the Independent from its 1986 launch, and it lived up to its boast of independence until 1991 when it took a very partisan stance over the 2nd Gulf War (invasion of Kuwait) and never regained its former balanced reporting so I stopped reading it.

RP - If you've met them and heard them talk an impressive talk, it seems to me that you've done exactly "banker-style due diligence". In fact, given bankers' track record, you’ve probably done far more than your average banker does before taking a punt with someone else's cash and swiping a hefty margin on fees and commission ...

Shock, Horror, a UK newspaper might be owned by foreigners! What about the Daily Mail (owner lives in France), Daily Telegraph (owners live on their own private island), The Sun and The Times (whichever tax-haven Murdock is currently using)?

I've never read the Independent. I much prefer the Aberdeen Press and Journal.

Is Murdock committed to free expression?

" a banker style due diligence" lets hope thats worth more than a banker style audit. Sorry Auditors had to get that pop in.

has the independent ever lived up to its title, is any publication or broadcaster respected these days for its independent.

Personally i would prefer not to have to read the same story from 4 or 5 different sources to get anything half balanced.

The best we can hope for is someone to break up the status quo but with all revenue comming from advertisers, i suspect it to be very popularist and the balance and weight of arguement to be in their advertisers favour

Banker-style due diligence? What of the Lloyds HBOS sort? Bankers don't know what proper due diligence is. All they care about is getting their money back - it's the strength of the security or collateral that matters to them. They have to use professional help to value that sort of thing, because then they can blame someone else.

Due diligence ought to suggest that the paper is losing £10million per year, because that's what's actually been happening? The Evening Standard is now a tried and tested business model for them. With the sums of money at stake, it would seem likely this is how it will go.

I find the Independent incomprehensible at the best of times. It might just as well be written in cyrillic letters for all the sense it makes.

It would be interesting to know where all this cash is coming from. Do the tax authorities know? Does Charlie Whelan know? Lord Ashcroft, even?

Under the Tories it was cash for questions, now it is cash for influence. This is far less vulgar, isn't it?

Are we contemplating Lord Lebedev? I mean we had Lord Black from Canada, so why should Canada have something the Russians haven't?

"Paper late!" cried a voice in the crowd.
"Old man dies!" The note he left was signed 'Old Father Thames'
- it seems he's drowned;
selling england by the pound.

Citizens of Hope & Glory,
Time goes by - it's the 'time of your life'.
Easy now, sit you down.
Chewing through your Wimpey dreams,
they eat without a sound;
digesting england by the pound.

I'm having trouble trying to understand how an ex KGB officer has amassed a $2bn fortune. Not exactly the communist principles as I understand them. In fact, there seems to be a worldwide spread of ex communist security officials who have become business men.

I have to confess to being very disquieted by the steady, insiduous influence these people are exerting around the world. Is noone investigating how these 'gentlemen' have achieved such dizzy financial heights over such a short time? Are countries so desperate for 'overseas' investment to support their economies that the source of their funds is being overlooked?

I wonder if he pays UK taxes, or like many other oligarchs is a non-dom? I would also be interested to know how many of these businessmen give financial support to our political parties. It seems almost like a repeat of the spread of influence of the Mafia all those years ago.

I am very naive in such matters, but I can't help but be suspicious of the source of such funds. Are such personal fortunes 'ill gotten gains'?

Hmmm. Dark days indeed.

(Robert - great to see a non-banking business story! It's like a breath of fresh air. Thank you!)

Yes, Robert..... bad mistake to cite "banker-type due diligence" given what we now know about bankers!!

But re your main subject, Lebedev must be playing the preparation game for when newspapers get downloaded every morning (.....onto iPads?).

Develop a good market position using the old technology and get people used to a particular style and content by giving it away free, so driving the weaker ones out of business. Then start charging the same (but a much smaller than present market) cover price for the hard copy and soft copy, so it makes no difference.

It's all to the good and will give Murdoch and others a nice headache.

But no risk to democracy and free speech (....unless he buys the Beeb as well?)

It seems to me that either some are giving naked capitalism a very bad image, or do they just plan to do very well by it? Could it be both? The depths are hard to fathom.

No due diligence at all? That's exactly what you've done!

Nevermind. Good luck to them. In exactly the same way as Murdoch barely gets away with bias- I dont think they will either. If it is about politics I suspect its more about politics at home rather than here...having a high profile foreign asset/presence is a great insurance policy against sudden shifts in fortunes at home.

Ask Mr Abramovich- or Mr Khodorkovsky for that matter.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

No...the answer is simple.
It's a tax write-off.
We all know that printed newspapers are declining in favour of the internet. Buying a printed newspaper that is already losing money is financial suicide.
Unless of course you want to 'lose money'.

It's a pity that "banker-style due diligence" never seems to get applied to bankers.

Vladimir,

I think it's tewrible we are subjected to this sovviet style of media reporting.
Nationalised banks, Commie newspapers - what is the world coming to?

WELL DONE Mr Peston - u completely ignore the EU report on Britains attitude to its deficit AND the Polls showing Tories running away with Election - Whelan, Mandy, and Clown WILL b happy with u but for us neutrals it is garbage and I resent some of my licence fee going on this so called Business Editor - who REALLY cares whether an ex or current KGB man owns it - we pay Bliar huge sums to trot around the world so WHO CARES???????????????

I stopped buying the Evening Standard when Victor Lewis-Smith gave up doing his TV reviews, they were worth the cover price on their own.

London seems to preferred place for dirty money laundering. Money is king here!

KGB pay obviously wasnt quite as restrictive as that paid to the workers.

#21

Yep.... I found out recently that even my son's iPhone was built by the Chinese Communists. However, it didn't make it leak proof and it's not as strong as nails.. Well not as strong as the one I hammered through it anyway. :-)

If you fancy having a dig around Mr Lebedev's current affairs...may I suggest you start with a Russian oil & gas company called Timan Oil & Gas and see what he is trying to do to protect the interests of the UK shareholders in this company.

The activities behind the scenes there seem to be murkier than the Thames......

25. AqualungCumbria 'KGB pay obviously wasnt quite as restrictive as that paid to the workers.'

What makes you say that? Don't they buy businesses with credit? Some people just think it's bad form. They were conditined to think that way of course. Just as Muslims are, and Christians of old. Now, where did they all get their 'ideas' from?

Like many people I very rarely buy a newspaper these days as I get most of my news from the internet. When I do buy a newspaper I tend to buy The Independent as more often than not you can still read both sides of each story within its pages rather than the usual one-sided tripe you get in most of the British press.
I do go on to The Independents website quite regularly, particularly for articles written by Robert Fisk. So for me, as long as the current bunch of good writers are kept on, and maybe even joined by a few more, then I'll keep on reading their articles on the website and occasionally buying their newspaper.

I don't really care who owns the paper as long as they're not using it as their personal propaganda machine or as a vehicle to spread fear and hatred throughout our country. As long as they're paying their taxes, obeying the law and allowing their journalists to retain a degree of journalistic independence then I'm happy to support them.

22. At 12:29pm on 16 Mar 2010, ronreagan wrote:

"WELL DONE Mr Peston - u completely ignore the EU report on Britains attitude to its deficit AND the Polls showing Tories running away with Election "

running away with - or running away from?

26. At 1:32pm on 16 Mar 2010, Wee-Scamp wrote:

"Well not as strong as the one I hammered through it anyway."

Was that done in:

a) Anger
b) Frustration
c) Paranoia
d) Very poor DIY skills
e) Another reason.

I wonder if the independet will be looking for a business editor.

Maybe they will point out the bravado of the damned. How about this for a quote predicting the 'quiet before the storm' will last forever...

""The rise in Dubai's CDS levels were probably overdone and the global environment has improved, particularly with regards to Greece," said Eric Swats, head of asset management at Rasmala Investments."

Can anyone (as a starter for 10) explain what improvement has happened in Greece recently?
The last time I looked spending cuts were merely 'proposed' and clearly 'rejected' by the number of protests. The EU have not signalled a bailout is imminent and the Greeks issued their last round of debt at a significant spread over what was expected (their worries were so great about the auction failing)

This is yet another example where a baseless comment can be made and turned into a story giving 'confidence'.
Sadly this is the sort of nonesense a banana republic goes in for - they profess how great the leader is - even in the face of his abject failure - and it only serves to create a bigger backlash once everyone has had enough of being lied to.

This same tactic is being used in the wider Economy - and it's not managing to cover the obvious facts that:

a) The Housing market cannot sustain itself without stimulus
b) The credit calmities of 2008 have not yet fully subsided
c) The Debt still exists, it's merely been moved to Government balance sheets
d) Someone is going to have to pay for all this - and everyone is getting into position to make sure it isn't them.

To make a point not already among some of the acute ones above.... the Indy isn't a newspaper it's a brand that will carry a 'tv-style' 'narrowcast' news channel.

Short term the Inde can compete against (but in a different business space) Associated's Metro both in London and the other conurbations that give large number's of 'hands free' commuters; areas with train/bus and underground systems and via distribution through high footfall areas, malls, supermarkets, coffee shops etc ---

However it's future will probably be as a niche content producer and aggregator more focussed online with video and audio--than on modified dead tree distribution with non-moving video and no-audio stories.

The question troubling all newspapers certainly in this country is that whatever happens with media convergence it's unlikely that the familiar ten national sunday and ten daily titles model will simply get peeled off the present newstands and slapped onto the internet space....

The internet tends to reduce plurality amongst almost any inermediated service...and 'news' isn't liable to be any different....... which (although it's not the point of this article) is why the current rising crescendo against the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ monolith, contains significant amplification from newspapers.

They know they'll be in the same space all too soon as the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ (and CNN, Bloomberg, Disney et al) and a smaller ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ will give much needed breathing space to old media hoping to find a comfortable corner in the new media bungalow.

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ resembles an old Soviet style entity in some ways...centralist, state funded and so forth...and now Vladmir Putin and mates have a couple of brands alongside the family football club they can max out the acheivable return , whether in hard cash or just 'soft' influence, by fast tracking, alongside News Corp's faltering efforts, and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s lavishly funded ones, into the converged media world of the 21st century--- increasingly located in the wireless connected mobile devices.

32. writingsonthewall 'Can anyone (as a starter for 10) explain what improvement has happened in Greece recently?'

You know the answer to that.

We now live in an overly verbal, feminized, world, where words are so detached from what they once referred to that anything goes. Feyerabend set up Against Method as a foil for Lakatos to knock down, but sadly, the latter died before he could do it. Meanwhile, hordes of ignorant badly educated but cocky nitwits act as if ecooomic anarchism (as expropriation of the state) is a good thing rather than destruction of what others had left them as their legacy.

33 e2toe4 'The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ resembles an old Soviet style entity in some ways...centralist, state funded and so forth'

No like Soviet China then?

The reality is that just as was the case with the USSR when it was privatised in the 90s, most of the UK state was in fact stolen from the people who had come to own it through taxes and debt, and was effectively bought up at a massive discount by wide-boys (just like in the USSR) who went on to asset strip/make a mess. The question is, how much of the USSR is really just being 'held in trust' by these Jewish Oligarchs? After all, the Soviet (Stalinist) People's Republic of China to be doing very well indeed with its SEZ/NEP. Or have I missed something?

Try this one plamski:

The ammunition's being passed, and the lords been praised,
But the wars on the televisions will never be explained,
All the bankers gettin sweaty, beneath their white collars,
As the pound in our pocket, turns... into a dollar.

Just keep Phi, Virgilus, Punk, Hypnos, et al. Beelzebub and most of the Inquisitor mob. Most especially Virgilus. And keep a daily subscriber happy. No Schadenfreude - he/she is too hard.

"But I haven't conducted banker-style due diligence on them."

What does that mean?
You haven't made things up or made things looked better than they actually are, or you have political cover for anything you might say or do, or you expect a bonus at taxpayer expense for writing the article? Banker-style due diligence usally means...cooking the books.

Most of the newspapers in Britain are foreign owned that is why they are so antibritish

#39 HonestMP

Most of our MP's are foreign owned, that's why they are so anti-British!

The influence of intelligence services on the British left

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

Under the new ownership the now free Standard has ceased to be available in my area except for one rather distant supermarket. As I do not use the tube, where it can be found lying around, I can no longer read it. In the past I have been able to just buy it if I wanted to.

There is definitely more to why the Lebedevs wish to own UK media. If business was all they are after, there are more convenient and probably still lucrative investments they could have picked, and some with the attending limelight which this sort of people craves. Is there still a journalist around who would really, really look into this?