Profile
The group is a digital media company that targets both direct consumers and businesses. It provides news and lifestyle digital content on websites such as independent.co.uk and indy100.com. The company also operates digital applications such as The Independent Digital Edition and The Independent App. Additionally, they offer events marketing and consultancy services and digital services to other companies. The company runs an eCommerce platform and developed IndependentTV, a video news provision service, as well as a website in Spanish – Independent en Español – which was launched in 2020 and is mainly targeted at Latin American markets in the US and Mexico.
The Independent is a British online newspaper that was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Its printed edition was discontinued in 2016, leaving only the online edition. The Independent on Sunday also ceased to appear and was closed in the same year.
The newspaper was controlled by Tony O’Reilly’s Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to a company controlled by the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev and his son, Evgeny, in 2010. Lebedev also co-owned Novaya Gazeta alongside Mikhail Gorbachev until the latter’s death on 30 August 2022. In 2009, Lebedev had bought a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard.
Newspaper owner Evgeny Lebedev was appointed to the House of Lords in 2020 by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Lord Lebedev, who owns the Evening Standard and Independent newspapers, was nominated to the House of Lords for philanthropy and services to the media. Evgeny Lebedev was born in Russia but moved to the UK as a child. He holds Russian and British nationality. His full title is Baron Lebedev, of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation.
In 2009, Evgeny and his father bought a 65% share in the Evening Standard newspaper. In March 2010, just weeks before it was due to close, Lebedev bought The Independent and The Independent on Sunday. In 2011, he launched The Journalism Foundation to promote “free and independent journalism throughout the world,” although it was closed after a year.
In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in The Independent. As a result, the newspaper currently has three principal shareholders: Evgeny Lebedev, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel, and Justin David Elliott Byam Shaw.
