Daily Mail owner seals £500m deal for The Telegraph
Daily Mail owner DMGT has struck a £500m deal to buy the Telegraph Media Group, drawing a line under one of the most drawn-out and politically fraught takeover battles in the British press.
The publisher has entered an exclusive period of talks with RedBird IMI, the Abu Dhabi-linked fund whose own attempt to buy the paper was blocked last year under foreign state influence rules, and expects regulatory filings to follow “quickly”.
DMGT said the agreement would finally give “certainty” to Telegraph staff after two years of turbulence.
Lord Rothermere, DMGT’s chairman, said he had “long admired” the title and vowed to back its expansion.
“Chris Evans is an excellent editor and we intend to give him the resources to invest in the newsroom” he said.
“Under our ownership, the Daily Telegraph will become a global brand, just as the Daily Mail has.”
If approved, the deal would place the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph alongside the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro and the i newspaper, forging one of the most powerful right-leaning media groups in the country at a moment of political flux.
The end of a long fight
The £500m price matches the amount RedBird IMI spent refinancing the Telegraph’s former owners before its bid collapsed under government scrutiny.
A follow-up attempt by US firm RedBird Capital Partners also fell apart last week after internal backlash from senior Telegraph journalists.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the new offer will be reviewed under public interest and foreign influence laws, though DMGT insists its structure contains “no foreign state investment”.
DMGT plans to “invest substantially” in the Telegraph, sharpening its international push with a particular focus on the US.
The group said the paper would stay editorially independent from its other titles.
The deal comes as Britain’s newspaper industry faces rising costs, soft print sales and fierce digital competition from tech platforms.
The Telegraph, one of the few UK papers with a profitable subscription model, remains a valuable prize.
If approved, the takeover would mark the biggest reshaping of the UK press in more than a decade, and a major expansion of the Rothermere media empire.