Chiefs at the parent company of the Independent almost doubled their take-home pay last year as plans were being put in motion to cut jobs and shut the newspaper titles.
Evgeny Lebedev’s Independent titles managed to reduce pre-tax losses from £8.5m to £6.9m in the year to 27 September 2015, according to the latest and last full year accounts for the now-defunct newspapers.
At a “trading” level, excluding items such as interest repayments and redundancy costs, the Independent and Independent on Sunday lost just £3.74m last year.
Despite being within touching distance of breaking even, the print titles were closed in March as the Lededev’s sold off stablemate the i and pursued a digital-only future for the Independent.
Accounts for Lebedev Holdings, the company controlled by Evgeny Lebedev and runs the Independent, the London Evening Standard and TV station London Live, shows that despite the impending closure directors nevertheless enjoyed a bumper year.
The five directors – who include Alexander Lebedev, former chief executive Steve Auckland, chairman Justin Byam Shaw and financial chief Manish Malhotra – tripled their take home pay from £589,000 to £1.48m.
The unnamed highest-paid director pocketed £953,000, up from £529,000 in 2014. Specifically at the Independent, the highest paid director doubled pay from £200,000 to £416,000.
The seven directors of the subsidiary company that runs the Independent more than doubled their pay from £387,000 to £831,000.
The overall increase in director pay is the result of the addition of new directors between 2014 and 2015.
The series of financial filings for Evgeny Lebedev’s media assets show that the Evening Standard enjoyed another profitability boost in 2015 with pre-tax profits rising from £1.09m to £3.38m.
At a “trading” level profits rose from £1.35m to £4.5m.
Given the tough trading conditions in the UK ad market, which has seen most national newspaper publishers report print ad falls of as much as 20%, revenues rose admirably from £62.9m to £71m.
Independent Digital News and Media, the separate company spun-off from the Independent print titles made a net profit before tax of £1.27m.
And ESTV, the parent company of the London Live local TV channel, showed a significant reduction in losses from £11.5m to £6.34m year-on-year to 30 September 2015.
The filing show that Evgeny Lebedev and his father, Alexander, have ploughed more than £135m into their UK media assets since buying a controlling stake in the Evening Standard in 2009 and the Independent titles in 2010.
“The amount due to Mr Alexander Lebedev and Mr Evgeny Lebedev and the companies in which they have an interest at 27 September 2015 was £126.46m, plus interest payable of £9.35m,” the accounts state.
This is significantly up on the £111m total commitment reported in the 2014 filings.
Daily Mail & General Holdings, the Daily Mail owner which has a 24.9% stake in the Evening Standard, provided an interest-free loan of £12.48m.
