Independent newspapers made £7m loss in year before closure
The Independent newspapers lost £6.97m in their last full year, new accounts from the company show.
The pre-tax loss, for the year to 27 September 2015, was an improvement on an £8.54m loss the year before.
The Independent and Independent on Sunday were closed by owner Evgeny Lebedev in March, while cut-price sister title the i was sold to Johnston Press.
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Independent Digital News and Media, a separate company for the Independent’s website, which is still going, reported a net profit before tax of £1.27m for the year.
Meanwhile, in the same period, the Evening Standard newspaper reported a pre-tax profit of £3.38m, up from £1.1m in 2014.
And ESTV, the part of the company which owns local TV station London Live, reported a loss of £6.34m. This was an improvement on an £11.58m loss the year before.
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Lebedev Holdings, representing all of the groups, reported a nearly halved pre-tax loss of £10.36m, down from £19.42m in the year to September 2014.
Its turnover from newspaper publishing totalled £124.7m, up from £118.2m in 2014. TV broadcast turnover, meanwhile, was £2.7m, up from £1.3m.
Staff numbers increased from 616 to 657, while total directors’ pay increased from £589,000 to £1.48m. The highest paid director took up £953,000 from the business, up from £529,000.