Independent buyout deal with Lebedev 'imminent'

A DEAL with former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev to buy the Independent and Independent on Sunday is imminent, the newspapers' owner suggested yesterday.

Dublin-based Independent News & Media (INM) said an announcement on talks with Lebedev, who already owns the London Evening Standard, is "expected very shortly".

The two parties have been in talks since the end of last year and an exclusivity agreement, which had been due to expire on 15 February, was recently extended.

The two national titles already share the same offices as the Evening Standard in Kensington, London, and media analysts suggest a deal would provide significant cost-cutting opportunities.

Sam Hart, analyst at Charles Stanley, said: "I would definitely have thought there was quite a significant synergy potential there if they share an office already."

The deal has raised questions in the City over whether Lebedev would remove the cover price for the two newspapers, as he turned the Evening Standard into a free title last October. However, some analysts suggest that it would be logistically far more complicated to transfer a national newspaper to a free distribution model.