German media group Axel Springer has agreed to buy the owner of the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the United Kingdom, the companies say.
The 575 million pounds ($A1.1 billion) agreement ends a long saga over ownership of the Telegraph Media Group, which publishes the 171-year-old Daily Telegraph and its Sunday sister paper.
Axel Springer said it will invest in the group “to enable it to become the leading centre-right media outlet in the English-speaking world”.
“More than 20 years ago, we tried to acquire The Telegraph and did not succeed. Now our dream comes true,” Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner said.
The German company owns titles including the popular Bild tabloid and Welt newspaper as well as Business Insider and Politico.
“The Telegraph stands for freedom, personal responsibility, democratic values and a belief in open societies and market economies. These convictions closely align with our Axel Springer essential values,” Döpfner said.
The agreement follows years of uncertainty over the papers’ future and scuttles a rival bid by the owner of the Daily Mail to buy the Telegraph titles.
The Telegraph group, previously owned by the Barclay family, was put up for sale in 2023 to help pay off the family’s debts.
There was an offer to buy the publications from RedBird IMI, a consortium backed by RedBird Capital Partners and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family and the vice president of the United Arab Emirates.
The consortium pulled out in 2024 following strong opposition from the UK government, which launched legislation to block foreign state ownership of the local press.
with DPA
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