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The finance chief of The Daily Telegraph’s parent company is to leave amid a government-commissioned probe into the newspaper’s takeover by a state-backed Abu Dhabi investment vehicle.
Sky News has learnt that Cormac O’Shea, who has been Telegraph Media Group’s (TMG) chief financial officer since the autumn of 2021, is likely to step down in the next couple of months.
This weekend, insiders said the independent directors of the broadsheets’ holding company – who were initially appointed by receivers and have stayed on to oversee the Telegraph’s sale – had written to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to seek approval for the appointment of a successor.
Under the terms of a public interest intervention notice (PIIN) issued by Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary, late last month, the prospective owners of the Telegraph, RedBird IMI, are prohibited from exerting any influence over the titles while investigations by the competition and media regulators are ongoing.
That includes the removal of key executives and editorial staff or any attempt to merge the Telegraph with other assets.
TMG’s directors could appoint an interim successor to Mr O’Shea or could opt to run a search for a permanent replacement, with a protracted inquiry into the Abu Dhabi takeover looking increasingly likely, according to media analysts.
The precise reasons for Mr O’Shea’s departure were unclear this weekend, while it was also unclear whether he had been party to a pool of retention payments designed to encourage key employees to remain at the publisher while the sale process was ongoing.
Mr O’Shea is the most senior executive so far to have signalled their departure since the Telegraph’s holding company was forced into receivership by Lloyds Banking Group earlier this year.
The high street lender effectively ousted the Barclay family as owners of two of Britain’s most influential newspapers after nearly 20 years, following a long-running dispute over the…
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