[ad_1]
The German media giant which publishes Die Welt, one of Europe’s leading newspapers, has joined the race to buy The Daily Telegraph and its Sunday sister title.
Sky News can exclusively reveal that Axel Springer has registered its interest in acquiring the British broadsheets.
Insiders said the company, which also owns the Business Insider and Politico digital news platforms, had notified Goldman Sachs of its desire to participate in a forthcoming auction.
This weekend, it was unclear whether Axel Springer had retained its own advisers to work on a takeover bid for The Telegraph, or even if it planned to table a formal offer in a sale process expected to launch next month.
The emergence of its preliminary interest, however, intensifies the prospect of a full-blown bidding war for one of Britain’s most prominent media brands.
The Spectator, the weekly current affairs magazine, is also up for sale, having been part of the corporate structures seized by Lloyds Banking Group from its long-standing owners, the Barclay family, earlier this year.
It was unclear whether Axel Springer, which also owns the German newspaper Bild, has any interest in owning The Spectator.
Axel Springer was established by its eponymous founder in post-war Hamburg in 1946.
After his death in 1985, the company pursued an international expansion strategy which took it into other European markets such as Italy and Poland.
In 2004, Axel Springer was among the bidders for The Daily Telegraph in an auction eventually won by the Barclays.
The company is now 25%-owned by KKR, the US-based buyout giant, and is no longer a stock market-listed company.
An Axel Springer spokesman declined to comment.
Axel Springer’s potential bid for The Telegraph adds its name to a growing list of likely bidders.
They include Lord…
[ad_2]
