INM papers sale approved

BRITAIN’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has effectively approved Independent News & Media’s (INM) proposed sale of its two London-based newspapers to Russian tycoon, Alexander Lebedev – although no update on the sale process has actually been given by the company itself.

INM has been in exclusive talks with Mr Lebedev – who also owns London’s Evening Standard newspaper – over the sale of both the Independent and the Independent on Sunday since before Christmas. That exclusivity agreement was extended in February, but although a deal looked imminent – not least on the back of comments attributed to the Russian businessman in the British press – nothing has been completed as yet.

For its part, INM has remained tight-lipped on the issue, but the Dublin-headquartered group made a submission to the OFT at the end of last month, basically looking for regulatory approval.

That approval has now been granted, in essence, with the OFT saying the transaction would not constitute a merger and, therefore, not pose a competition threat in the British newspaper market. That ruling seems to clear the way for INM to offload the two loss-making titles and further reduce group debt levels.

While the company has been diligently lowering its debt levels of late, through a number of disposals (including, most recently, the dilution of its stake in Indian media group, JPL), its end of year debt – as of the end of 2009 – is estimated at about €1.2bn.

The company is due to publish its full-year 2009 financial results on Wednesday. Because of that, management was unable to make any comment yesterday.

On the results front, analysts are anticipating modest enough falls in revenues, but about €100m being knocked off operating profits, mainly on account of losses in the aforementioned British operations.