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Berlin-based Axel Springer said it will invest in the group “to
enable it to become the leading center-right media outlet in the
English-speaking world" and “turbocharge” expansion into the
U.S. market.
The German company owns titles including the Bild and Welt
newspapers, Business Insider and the political information group
Politico. It has made previous attempts to enter the British
market, with unsuccessful bids for the Telegraph in 2004 and the
Financial Times in 2015.
“More than 20 years ago, we tried to acquire The Telegraph and
did not succeed. Now our dream comes true,” Axel Springer CEO
Mathias Döpfner said.
The agreement follows years of uncertainty over the Telegraph
titles' future and scuttles a bid by the owner of the Daily
Mail, a rival right-of-center newspaper.
The Telegraph group, previously owned by Britain’s Barclay
family, was put up for sale in 2023 to help pay off the family’s
debts. There was an offer to buy the publications from RedBird
IMI, a consortium backed by RedBird Capital Partners and Sheikh
Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal
family and the vice president of the United Arab Emirates.
The consortium pulled out in 2024 following strong opposition
from the U.K. government, which launched legislation to block
foreign state ownership of the British press.
Daily Mail and General Trust, which owns the right-of-center
Daily Mail, later made a 500 million-pound offer, but earlier
this year the government ordered it be investigated over
concerns about the purchase's impact on competition and the
“plurality of views” in Britain's media.
The failed suitor criticized a "protracted and out-of-date
regulatory framework" for sinking its bid, but said “we wish
every success to Axel Springer and the Telegraph.”
Conservative news magazine The Spectator, previously part of the
Telegraph group, was sold separately in 2024 to British hedge
fund investor Paul Marshall.
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