The managing director of the British media group Telegraph Media Group CEO Nick Hugh resigned today amid controversy over a potential takeover of the business by a US-Emirati joint venture, a prospect that has worried London in relation to respect for the freedom of the press.
“Telegraph Media Group (TMG) and its parent company Press Acquisitions Limited announce that Nick Hugh will today (Friday) step down as managing director,” the group said in a press release.
Hugh, who has led the business since 2017, will be replaced by Anna Jones48, the first woman to hold the position, who joined the group “as a consultant in January 2023,” the press release continues.
TMG is one of Britain's most influential media groups, which includes the conservative newspaper The Telegraph and the weekly magazine The Spectator. The government announced at the end of November that it will review the sale process citing “the public interest” in the face of the takeover prospect of control by a joint venture between US equity firm Redbird and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Company (IMI).
Reason for this transaction: a £1.2 billion debt owed by the Berkeley family, which has owned the paper since 2004; The British bank Lloyds, a creditor of the Berkeleys, put the Telegraph up for sale in October in order to absorb this heavy liability.
But RedBird IMI offered to repay the debt, which it did from early December, in return for control of the group: the consortium plans to use an option to convert part of the loan into shares in the SME grouphowever assured that the Emirati company will be a “passive investor”.
Last night, Andrew Neill, chairman of the Spectator, expressed his concern that “those who fund this plan is United Arab Emirates“, which is “an undemocratic government, a dictatorship”, in his statements to the BBC, adding that “the government must intervene”.
Culture Minister Lucy Fraser has already expressed its concern about the risks to press freedom from a takeover by an Emirati company; which led to the assessment of the whole business by the UK competition authority CMA and the SME regulator Ofcom.
Those two bodies were expected to deliver their reports to Fraser today.
However, the British press has been speculating about a postponement of the takeover after RedBird IMI announced this week that it has changed the corporate structure through which it plans to acquire the Telegraph.
New London intervention
In this context, Britain today ordered a new inquiry into the plan, which is backed by Abu Dhabi, on the Telegraph takeover, stepping in for the second time after Redbird IMI reviewed the deal to allay concerns about foreign interference in one of the country's oldest newspapers.
The government explained its decision to intervene in the takeover on the basis of public interest, asking the competition authority CMA and media regulator Ofcom to consider whether RedBird IMI's revised agreement could have an impact on freedom of expression and propriety.
Regulators will submit their new report focusing on the deal on March 11.
Source: News Beast
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