Vedomosti was founded as a joint venture between Dow Jones, who publishes The Wall Street Journal; Pearson, who previously published the Financial Times; and Independent Media, who publishes The Moscow Times. Independent Media was acquired by Finnish media companySanoma in 2005. Sanoma sold its stake in the paper to, former chief executive of Kommersant, in April 2015. Ahead of a new Russian media ownership law prohibiting foreign enterprises from owning more than 20% of Russian media companies, Dow Jones and Pearson also divested their stakes in 2015 to Kudryavtsev, who held the right of first refusal. In March 2020, Kudryavtsev and his partners, Boris Berezovsky associate Vladimir Voronov and former News Corp executive Martin Pompadour, announced their intention to sell Vedomosti to two buyers: publisher of Nasha Versiya Konstantin Zyatkov and managing director of Arbat Capital Alexei Golubovich. Former editor-in-chief Tatiana Lysova criticized the sale, saying that the buyers were "alien to Vedomosti’s rules and ideals." The following month, the sale was put on hold amid accusations of censorship under editor-in-chief Andrey Shmarov. Shmarov reportedly deleted articles critical of Rosneft's head, Igor Sechin, and banned articles critical of Putin's proposed constitutional changes. According to an investigation by Meduza, Arkan Investment, Vedomostis parent company, had taken out a loan of from Rosneft's subsidiary the Russian Regional Development Bank to pay off a previous loan from the Russian state-owned bank Gazprombank which was used to buy Vedomosti in 2015. The investigation also alleged that Rosneft spokesperson Mikhail Leontyev was involved in both the selection of Shmarov as editor-in-chief and in negotiating the sale of the paper. Kudryavtsev confirmed the loan, but claims the loan was not used to buy Vedomosti. On 29 May 2020, Vedomosti was sold to businessman Ivan Yeremin via his holding company Sapport. On 15 June 2020, five senior editors resigned from Vedomosti in protest to Shmarov's confirmation to editor-in-chief by the paper's board of directors.
