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German media giant Axel Springer is to buy Telegraph Media Group in a £575m deal that will see the Daily and Sunday Telegraph print titles and their online business come under overseas ownership.
The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, will see titles with historic links to the Conservative Party and the British establishment, in the same stable as German titles Bild and Die Welt, along with online specialist media brands Politico and Business Insider.
The owner of the Daily Mail had been in talks to buy The Telegraph titles for several months, a deal that would have brought several of the UK’s largest right-of-centre outlets under single ownership.
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Scepticism about that deal has grown after an exclusivity period passed without a deal, amid concern any transaction would face intense scrutiny from the Labour government given of the political stance of the titles.
Discussions between Axel Springer and Redbird IMI, the US-Emirati group that controlled ownership of the group, intensified in recent weeks, and staff at the newspaper’s London offices were informed of the deal this morning.
An end to nearly three-years of limbo?
If approved, the deal will end nearly three years of limbo for the historic titles, whose future has been uncertain since Lloyds Banking Group took control of the group in lieu of unpaid debts owed by former owners, the Barclay brothers.
Redbird IMI appeared to have taken control of the titles in 2023 after short-circuiting an auction process by buying the debt directly from Lloyds, but the then-Conservative government blocked the deal after a campaign of opposition led by The Telegraph titles and allies in Parliament.
With Redbid IMI majority owned by the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, they objected to what it considered to be effective state ownership.
The government amended the law to prevent a state entity from owning more than 15% of a British…
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