Evening Standard made £28.3m loss in 10 months before becoming freesheet

Alexander Lebedev's London Evening Standard made a loss of £28.3m in the 10 months to early 0ctober last year, according to the latest figures filed at Companies House. The figures, for the period from 10 December 2008 to 4 October 2009, include £9.9m of exceptional restructuring costs including redundancies and moving from a paid-for title to a freesheet. Lebedev acquired the Evening Standard from Daily Mail & General Trust in February last year and shifted to a free distribution model on 12 October. The Evening Standard reportedly broke even for the first time under Lebedev's ownership last month . For the 10-month period to 4 October, Evening Standard Limited, the company Lebedev set up to publish the London weekday title, reported a turnover of £22m. Operating losses were £17m, excluding £9.9m of exceptional items including £3.4m for staff redundancy costs, with total losses for the period reaching £28.3m. Total staff costs for the period were £12.3m and the average number of employees was 346. The highest paid director, who is not named in the filing, received £302,552. The report also shows that Lebedev acquired the Evening Standard, which had fixed assets valued at £1.08m at the time, for £6.7m from DMGT. DMGT revealed in financial results last June that it had made a £6.3m loan to Evening Standard Limited that was "provided in full", meaning written off, by the Daily Mail owner. Additional notes to the Companies House filing show that as at 4 October Evening Standard Limited, which is co-located at DMGT's headquarters at Derry Street in west London along with the Lebedev-owned Independent titles, owed £1.6m in rent. This figure represents total rent payable for the term of the lease, which is given as expiring in "between two and five years". "The principal shareholders have committed to the level of funding required by the new three-year business plan which envisages that the company will become self-financing in the third year of the new plan," the company said in the filing. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".