Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Monday said she intends to pave the way for a ‘timely’ sale of the Daily Telegraph to the owner of the Daily Mail.
DMGT has struck a £500million deal to buy the prestigious newspaper which has endured a long period of uncertainty over its future. The merger will have to be approved by regulatory bodies and signed off by the Culture Secretary.
Ms Nandy told the House of Commons the Telegraph had been ‘in limbo for a long time’, and said: ‘My intention is to build a constructive path toward a timely sale, without further delay, that is in the public interest.’
It was announced on Saturday that DMGT has signed an exclusivity agreement with RedBird IMI, an international consortium which stepped in to purchase the Telegraph more than two years ago and has since been looking for a buyer.
In a written statement, Ms Nandy said: ‘Nineteen months have passed since RedBird IMI announced their intention to sell. A sale has still not happened and the situation has become unsustainable.
‘My particular concerns are that the protracted uncertainty has been detrimental to the stability of the Telegraph and its staff and to the investment appeal of the sector as a whole.’
She said the next step was for DMGT and RedBird IMI to prepare the necessary request for securing her consent, adding: ‘Given how much time has already elapsed in this case and the need for the period of uncertainty to be ended, I expect the submission of that request to take no longer than three weeks.’
If approved, the 170-year-old Daily Telegraph would join DMGT’s diverse stable which also includes Metro, The i Paper and New Scientist.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Monday said she intends to pave the way for a ‘timely’ sale of the Daily Telegraph to the owner of the Daily Mail
It comes as the owner of the Daily Mail has struck a £500million deal to buy The Daily Telegraph
In a statement, the company said: ‘Today’s media landscape is unrecognisable from a decade ago.
‘News publishers have to compete against both vast global online platforms and myriad digital and social media news sources, some of them highly unreliable.
‘The role of trusted news media has never been more important, and requires news publishers with scale and experience to compete.’
DMGT Chairman Lord Rothermere has told of his admiration for the Daily Telegraph, saying: ‘My family and I have an enduring love of newspapers and for the journalists who make them.
‘The Daily Telegraph is Britain’s largest and best quality broadsheet newspaper, and I have grown up respecting it. It has a remarkable history and has played a vital role in shaping Britain’s national debate over many decades.’
