Over the summer Lloyds Banking Group took control of parent company B.UK Ltd after a long-running dispute over loans made to Telegraph owners the Barclay family.
The Barclay brothers – twins Sir Frederick and the late Sir David – acquired Telegraph Media Group from Hollinger in 2004, in a £665m deal.
The official sale process, which will involve an auction and could see the titles go to separate new owners, is officially underway as of Friday (20 October).
“Further to the announcement on 28 July 2023, the boards of the parent companies of Telegraph Media Group Limited and The Spectator (1828) Limited announce that their advisers will today be launching a sale process for each of the businesses,” the businesses stated.
- The list of potential interested parties keeps expanding, and now includes:
Daily Mail owner DMGT - Times publisher News UK
- David Montgomery’s National World
- Former Telegraph editor William Lewis
- Hedge fund founder Sir Paul Marshall
- German publisher Axel Springer
- Czech billionaire (and major Royal Mail shareholder) Daniel Křetínský
- A consortium helmed by former Mail Online editor-in-chief Martin Clarke
- And, last but not least, a possible buyback bid from the Barclay family to regain control of their publishing assets
The process is expected to take several months.
Telegraph Media Group had sales of £254.2m in its latest accounts, for 2022, and made an operating profit of £40.1m.
The Spectator had sales of £20.8m and made an operating profit of £2.6m.
