14 Dec 2011 12:24

Onexim in preliminary talks to buy publisher Kommersant

MOSCOW. Dec 14 (Interfax) - Mikhail Prokhorov's Onexim Group is interested in acquiring the publishing house Kommersant, and is engaged in preliminary negotiations.

"We confirm the fact of preliminary negotiations on this matter," Onexim representative Andrei Belyak told Interfax. Interfax has been unable so far to get any comment from representatives of the publishing house's owner Alisher Usmanov.

It was announced on Monday that the Kommersant holding's general director, Andrei Galiev, and the senior editor of the magazine Kommersant-Vlasti, Maxim Kovalsky, had been fired after the publication in Vlasti of a photograph of an election ballot on which foul language regarding Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had been written.