• Financial Times, Thursday, January 15, 2009 9:30 AM

In a sign that struggling media outlets could find new life with foreign owners, London's Evening Standard newspaper is in talks to sell a 75% stake to Russian banker Alexander Lebedev. The billionaire and former lieutenant-colonel in the KGB would be the first Russian citizen to own a high-profile UK newspaper.

The newspaper is believed to have rejected an earlier attempt by Lebedev to buy the newspaper outright. Lebedev is a member of the Russian parliament and heads the National Reserve Bank in Russia. He is also the owner of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, which has been critical of corruption in Russia and whose main investigative reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, was murdered in 2006.

Newspapers are "not my way to make money, but I [believe] they are something the public should love and cherish," he says. He also says he would not take an active part in the news content of the Standard if he were to take control of it.

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