The hedge fund founder enlisted to back a bid for The Daily Telegraph says the offer is “ready to go” if a takeover of the broadsheet title involving sovereign Gulf money runs into further regulatory problems.
Sky News has learnt that Jeremy Hosking, the prominent City figure who co-founded Marathon Asset Management, is pledging to inject £100m of his own money into the newspaper group if the self-styled ‘British bid’ of which he is part is successful.
Mr Hosking, who now runs Hosking Partners, has been working with Dovid Efune, the owner of the New York Sun, in an effort to gain control of the Telegraph for several months.
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They have been thwarted, though, by an agreement reached with RedBird Capital Partners, the US-based investment firm, to buy the titles for £500m following a two-year battle which has plunged the Telegraph into a protracted state of limbo.
RedBird’s bid includes tens of millions of pounds of funding from IMI, a state-backed Abu Dhabi vehicle, which cleared a key hurdle last week when the House of Lords voted against a ‘fatal motion’ which would have blocked the sovereign investment.
The outcome of the vote was not without fierce debate, with 155 peers supporting the ban.
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IMI is controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates and ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club.
Speaking through Mr Efune, Mr Hosking said in a statement on Wednesday morning: “We have been following the latest developments closely and with the best outcome for all Telegraph stakeholders front of mind.
“We understand from the Lords debate last week that there is now a legal requirement for the government to formally investigate all the foreign government ties that may result in influence over the current preferred buyer.
“Should the buyer be deemed unsuitable, our “British Bid” is ready to go.
“We believe our current capitalization is more than adequate to replace the controlling shareholder’s portion of the deal.
“My own personal commitment is £100m in equity capital.”
Further details of the financing lined up by Mr Efune’s consortium remain unclear, including the level of debt attached to his prospective offer.
The RedBird-led acquisition of the Telegraph remains subject to investigations by both Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority, which are likely to delay completion of the deal into next year.
Sky News previously revealed that Sir Leonard Blavatnik, owner of the DAZN sports streaming platform, and Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere were preparing to buy minority stakes as part of the RedBird transaction.
Gerry Cardinale, the RedBird executive, who has spearheaded the latest iteration of its acquisition, has described the firm as “the right owner at the right time”.
RedBird said in May that it was “in discussions with select UK-based minority investors with print media expertise and strong commitment to upholding the editorial values of the Telegraph”.
The Telegraph titles’ parent company was forced into insolvency proceedings in 2023 by Lloyds Banking Group, which ran out of patience with the Barclay family, their long-standing owner.
RedBird IMI, a joint venture between the two firms, paid £600m several months later to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine.
That objective was thwarted by a change in media ownership laws – which banned any form of foreign state ownership.
Some peers argued last week that a 15% threshold was too high and that the legislation to permit it was dangerously ambiguous because it could allow for more than one state investor to aggregate their holdings in British newspapers.
A further statutory instrument will need to be approved in order to address this issue.
The Spectator, which had also been part of the same group, was sold last year for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, who has installed Lord Gove, the former cabinet minister, as its editor.
