Sanoma closes deal to sell stake in Vedomosti ahead of law limiting foreign media shareholding

Finnish media holding Sanoma has closed a deal to sell a third of its Russian business daily Vedomosti to Demyan Kudryavtsev, the former director-general of Kommersant Publishing House, a source at Vedomosti confirmed today. Sanoma will also sell its full stake in English-language newspaper The Moscow Times to Kudryavtsev, along with a number of other media titles produced by its publishing house United Press.

The money for the stake in Vedomosti, which is marked at around $6 million, came from a pool of private investors, headed by Kudryavtsev. Kudryavtsev met with number of potential investors, including financial and industrial groups, but none of Russia’s most prominent businessmen were willing to participate in the purchase, Kommersant reported.

The move comes after a bill was signed into law last September to limit foreign shareholding in Russian media to 20%, stoking concerns for the fate of some of Russia’s most respected independent media outlets owned by foreign stakeholders. The law, which will come into effect in January 2017, has widely been considered to be an attempt to muzzle independent media ahead of the Russian presidential elections later that year.