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RedBird Capital Partners has lined up US investment group Apollo to provide the debt for its £500mn takeover of the Telegraph, securing funding ahead of a government decision over whether to refer the deal to regulators.
The private equity firm, founded by US financier Gerry Cardinale, has been part of talks to take control of the Telegraph for two years, in a deal repeatedly delayed by controversy over the ownership of the national newspaper.
After the group filed its plans to buy the newspaper last month, UK government ministers are expected to ask that the deal be scrutinised by the competition watchdog and media regulator Ofcom, according to people close to the transaction. No decision has yet been taken, they added, with an announcement expected this month.
A 2023 deal to sell the Telegraph to RedBird IMI, a joint venture with Abu Dhabi state-owned investor IMI, was blocked after an outcry from politicians over the risk of overseas state influence on British national newspapers.
Under the proposed structure, RedBird will be the biggest investor in the ownership consortium, with Abu Dhabi’s IMI taking a 15 per cent stake in line with new legislation setting a limit for foreign state ownership in the British press.
Lord Rothermere’s DMGT, which owns the Daily Mail, and billionaire Sir Leonard Blavatnik are also expected to take smaller stakes in the group of about 10 per cent.
RedBird is seeking about £150mn in debt from Apollo for the deal, according to people close to the process, which would reflect a multiple of more than 2.5 times operating profit at the Telegraph. RedBird and Apollo declined to comment.
Analysts had questioned whether RedBird would raise debt from overseas investors, including from the Middle East, a move that could have created new problems for a deal already mired in geopolitics.
RedBird itself, which has more than $10bn in assets under management, has also faced questions over whether it counts sovereign wealth funds from Abu Dhabi or China among its investors.
Cardinale has said in the past that its funds “are backed by a diverse group of leading global blue-chip institutional investors and family offices, which do not include any institutions or individuals from the UAE or from China”.
Apollo had previously been lined up to back a deal by New York Sun owner Dovid Efune, who had been bidding for the Telegraph last year.
RedBird holds various UK investments, including a stake in the parent company of Liverpool Football Club as well as in All3Media, the UK studio that it acquired as part of its joint venture with IMI in 2024.
With Skydance Media, it recently acquired Paramount Global, the owner of CBS News, and is among the parties interested in buying Warner Bros Discovery in the US.
The sale of the Telegraph began more than two years ago when Lloyds Banking Group forced the newspaper’s parent company into insolvency because of unpaid loans by the Barclay family, who then owned the newspaper.
