The media wing of Russian gas giant Gazprom announced Friday that it has purchased a controlling stake of the country's respected Izvestia daily.

Gazprom-Media said it has purchased 50.19 percent of shares of Izvestia from the Prof-Media publishing house, Russian news agencies reported. The worth of the deal was not immediately known.

"In so doing, we have covered virtually the last market segment (the print media) in which our holding company had not been present earlier," Gazprom-Media general director Nikolai Senkevich was quoted as saying in a press release.

Gazprom, the world's largest producer of natural gas, already owns NTV and Echo Moscow radio.

Prof-Media general director Rafael Akopov said the deal is in line with the company's development strategy, which "is moving toward the segment of less political and more entertaining media," according to Interfax.

Izvestia, one of the largest and the most respected national newspaper in Russia, was founded in 1917. With a circulation of 234,500, the paper is distributed in Russia, other member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Israel, Germany, Britain, Japan and the United States.

Source: Xinhua