The proposed purchase must now be approved by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy….reports Asian Lite News
The publisher of the Daily Mail, Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), has agreed to buy the Daily and Sunday Telegraph in a £500m deal that, if approved, would bring an end to more than two years of limbo for the influential British broadsheets.
DMGT said it had entered a formal period of discussion with RedBird IMI — a joint venture between the United Arab Emirates and US private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners — to acquire the titles. RedBird Capital’s own bid for the Telegraph collapsed last week after prolonged scrutiny from ministers and regulators.
The proposed purchase must now be approved by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. A spokesperson for Nandy said she would “review any new buyer acquiring the Telegraph in line with the public interest and foreign state influence media mergers regimes”, signalling that the acquisition will face rigorous assessment.
The Telegraph has been stuck in uncertainty since the RedBird IMI consortium paid off the debts of its former owners, the Barclay family, in 2023. That arrangement was intended to pave the way for RedBird IMI to take full control of the newspapers, but the plan repeatedly stalled amid political objections and tightened media ownership rules.
Dame Caroline Dineage, chair of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, welcomed the prospect of a resolution. She said she was “keen to see a resolution to the uncertainty that’s hampered the Telegraph for years”, while stressing the continuing need for “media plurality”. She added that the situation had been “unsustainable for the business and unsettling for staff” and urged the government to set out its position early next week.
DMGT and RedBird IMI said they expect the deal to move quickly. DMGT chairman Lord Rothermere praised the titles and said the acquisition would provide the stability employees had long awaited. “The Daily Telegraph is Britain’s largest and best quality broadsheet newspaper and I have grown up respecting it,” he said. “It has a remarkable history and has played a vital role in shaping Britain’s national debate over many decades.”
Rothermere added that current editor Chris Evans would receive the resources needed to invest in the newsroom, and said the group intended to help the paper grow internationally. “Under our ownership, the Daily Telegraph will become a global brand, just as the Daily Mail has,” he said.
If the deal goes ahead, the Telegraph will join DMGT’s extensive media portfolio, which includes the i Paper, Metro, New Scientist, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. DMGT insisted the Telegraph would remain editorially independent from its other titles and argued that its case for the acquisition was “compelling”. The group stressed that the funding structure would not involve foreign state investment, a point likely to be central to securing approval.
RedBird IMI said it had worked “swiftly” with DMGT to reach the agreement, which will shortly be sent to the culture secretary for review.
Elsewhere, concerns have already emerged about the broader impact on the UK media landscape. Chris Fox, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for business in the House of Lords, said the potential deal “should certainly be considered” as a way to end the prolonged uncertainty but warned that liberals were “sceptical about concentrating so much agenda-setting power in the hands of so few”. He called on the competition regulator to “rigorously examine” the agreement to ensure the media market does not become even more unbalanced.
RedBird Capital’s withdrawal from its own takeover attempt marked the end of a contentious process. Its earlier bid was rejected by politicians because it was majority-funded by Abu Dhabi’s IMI group, owned by the emirate’s ruling family. A recent UK law change capped foreign sovereign wealth stakes in newspapers at 15%. RedBird’s revised proposal complied with the rule, but government officials were nevertheless expected to refer it for regulatory review.
Sources close to RedBird said they believed the bid would ultimately have passed scrutiny, but negative coverage from within the Telegraph newsroom influenced their decision to pull out. RedBird founder Gerry Cardinale had hoped to significantly expand the Telegraph’s presence and subscriber base in the US, arguing that the American market offered untapped potential.
With DMGT now stepping in, the long-running saga of the Telegraph’s ownership may finally be approaching a definitive turning point.
