(London) The British government announced on Thursday that it would intervene in the sale process of the media group The Telegraph in the name of “the public interest”, facing the prospect of a takeover by a US-Emirati fund .
In a press release on Thursday, the Minister of Culture Lucy Frazer announced that she had informed the Barclay family and Redbird IMI, respectively current owner and potential buyer of the group, of her intention to launch a procedure which will trigger reports from the authority of the competition (CMA) and the media regulator.
The latter is seized of questions on the “need to present information accurately and free expression in the newspapers”, she underlined.
The minister asked them to submit their reports by January 26.
Her decision to launch a “notice of intervention in the name of public interest” relates to her “concerns that there may be public interest considerations”, she wrote in a press release.
The British bank Lloyds, creditor of the Barclays, put the Telegraph up for sale in October to pay off heavy debts amounting to around 1.2 billion pounds.
The sale of the group, one of the most influential in the British press, which includes the conservative daily The Telegraph and the weekly Spectator, is causing concern in the political class.
A joint venture between the US fund Redbird and the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Fund (IMI) recently reached an agreement with the Barclay family to repay its debt to Lloyds Bank, a deal which would see the joint venture take over group control.
The joint venture, called Redbird IMI, assured that the Emirati fund “will only be a passive investor” and that the American fund “will alone take control of the management and operational responsibility of the securities under the direction” of the ex-boss from CNN, Jeff Zucker, CEO of RedBird IMI.
Lloyds is currently studying this financing agreement, according to a source close to the matter.
Other buyers are in the running, a source close to the operation told AFP last month, including the German press group Axel Springer, publisher of the tabloid Bild, and DMGT, parent company of the right-wing tabloid in particular. The Daily Mail.
