We spoke too soon. In September 2023, we promised here that we were about to learn what an elderly UK national newspaper was worth in a world dominated by the new media companies. Eighteen months on, we are still waiting to find out. The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph have been cast into a suffocating limbo.

The saga is complex but has a simple thread. The Barclay family, proud proprietors of the title since 2004, turned out to be occupying a false position on the Sunday Times Rich List, a situation half suspected, but difficult to establish in the face of ferocious lawyers. It is the kind of misunderstanding to which newspaper barons seem prone, despite all those inquiring minds on their City desks.

There was some alarm when the financially savvy media journalist Jane Martinson published a book taking a close look at the famously private family, its property dealings and its expertise in borrowing. There was more alarm when it emerged that Lloyds Bank had allowed the family to run up a debt of £1.2billion and, believing it would never see that repaid, seized the paper to put it up for sale.

That sale didn’t happen, for the Barclay family found Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother of the ruler of Abu Dhabi. The sheikh, in tandem with a private equity house, lent the money to the Barclays to repay the bank on the understanding that the debt would convert to equity and a joint entity – RedBird IMI – would become owner of the newspaper and its sibling, The Spectator. The element of that £1.2billion loan allocated to the titles was £600million, not far short of the £665million the Barclay family paid in 2004, though some way from the £1billion that sum is worth in today’s money.

Some media figures – not all of them already operating with money from Saudi Arabia – saw no downside. Others, including staff of the paper, were reluctant to be delivered into the hands of a country that believed in telling journalists what to write. Naturally, this journal sided with the second group. It was an opportunity to assert that not all of the UK is for sale; that a free press is too important to be sold into the hands of those who don’t believe in one and – why not? – to give a kick to George Osborne, the former chancellor of the exchequer who, in his new life as an investment banker about to make money on the deal, had assured the sheikh the titles would shortly be his.

Happily, the government stopped the sale, using an Ofcom investigation and new law to prevent it. Unhappily, newspapers have become orphans. The Barclay family remains technical owner, RedBird IMI is notionally in charge, the government has what could be called control. As one of the journalists put it: “We’re responsible to RedBird fiscally, responsible to the Barclays legally, responsible to the government ultimately.” Many responsibilities, not much power. The government allows neither the Barclay family nor RedBird to take strategic decisions or influence editorial, though the latter has recently urged internal management to make job cuts. Several millions of pounds are going to the lawyers, restructuring firms and other advisers who gather round scenes of business distress.

RedBird is meant to find a buyer, as it did with The Spectator, sold to the hedge fund boss and GB News investor Sir Paul Marshall for £100million. Potential buyers named in speculative stories have turned out on closer inspection to be short of funds. Some believe that the sheikh, having recovered £100million of his investment through the Spectator sale, regards £500million as a minimum price for the Telegraph titles. We know why he might be cross, for he was sold a pup, but no one is likely to pay that now. Who will persuade the sheikh to take a haircut? It’s a tough one for the culture secretary Lisa Nandy. This government wants to persuade Abu Dhabi to buy more of the UK, rather than explain why it’s not getting its money back from a sale that fell through. But if RedBird won’t get on with things, Ms Nandy must act. A year ago, we urged an old and struggling government to stop the sale. Now we ask a new and struggling government to get on with one. Exert control, slash the price and bring in an owner with the ambition to have the papers thrive.
KF