The tradition secretary will on Thursday launch a probe into the takeover of The Daily Telegraph by a state-backed Abu Dhabi-based fund.
Sky News has learnt that Lucy Frazer plans to subject a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN) that can set off an inquiry by Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority into RedBird IMI’s potential possession of the newspaper inside hours.
Sources mentioned there was a small probability that the PIIN’s publication may very well be delayed till Friday, however was “overwhelmingly likely” to be issued in the present day.
The PIIN is not going to forestall Lloyds Banking Group receiving a £1.16bn mortgage reimbursement – funded by RedBird IMI – from the Barclay household, the long-standing house owners of the Telegraph and Spectator journal, in line with one City supply.
Ms Frazer’s transfer will kickstart a months-long course of which is able to both end result within the Telegraph turning into a part of a fund part-owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal household and proprietor of Manchester City, or reignite an public sale of two of the nation’s most influential newspapers.
On Wednesday, Lloyds wrote to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to inform officers that the Barclay household will repay a £1.16bn mortgage to it within the coming days.
The discover – which had been demanded by Ms Frazer final week – signifies that the funds can be transferred to Lloyds as early as Friday, or initially of subsequent week.
That would set off the dissolution of a court docket listening to within the British Virgin Islands to liquidate a Barclay household firm tied to the newspaper’s possession, and quickly put the Barclays again answerable for their shares within the broadsheet title.
However, a proper maintain separate discover, which had been thought-about by Whitehall to ensure the independence of the Telegraph through the PIIN course of, is just not anticipated to type a part of Thursday’s announcement, sources mentioned.
Instead, an settlement can be put in place to make sure the impartial governance of the titles through the course of, they added.
Lloyds wrote to authorities officers final Thursday to say it might assist the retention of a trio of impartial administrators, led by the Openreach chairman Mike McTighe, whereas a public curiosity inquiry is carried out.
RedBird IMI, which is led by the previous CNN president Jeff Zucker, intends to take management of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph by changing a £600m chunk of its mortgage to the Barclays into fairness.
The fund’s supply to fund the mortgage redemption has circumvented an public sale of the Telegraph titles which has drawn curiosity from a spread of bidders.
Last week, Mr Zucker, who Sky News revealed was spearheading the deal, instructed the Financial Times that competing bidders have been “slinging mud”.
“There’s a reason that people are slinging mud and throwing darts – [it’s] because they want to own these assets,” he instructed the newspaper.
“And they have their own media assets to try to hurt us.”
The battle for management of The Daily Telegraph has quickly became a fancy business and political row which has raised tensions between the DCMS and the Foreign Office over Britain’s receptiveness to overseas funding.
Prospective bidders led by the hedge fund billionaire and GB News shareholder Sir Paul Marshall have been agitating for the launch of a PIIN.
Sky News revealed final week that Ed Richards, the previous boss of media regulator Ofcom, is performing as a lobbyist for RedBird IMI by means of Flint Global, which was co-founded by Sir Simon Fraser, former Foreign Office everlasting secretary.
The Telegraph public sale, which has additionally drawn curiosity from the Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere and National World, a London-listed native newspaper writer, has now been paused till subsequent month.
The unique bid deadline had been shifted from 28 November to 10 December to take account of the chance that Lloyds is perhaps repaid in full by the Barclay household by December 1.
That bid deadline is now prone to be cancelled.
The Barclays have made a collection of elevated gives in latest months to go off an public sale of the newspapers they purchased almost 20 years in the past, elevating its proposal final month to £1bn.
Until June, the newspapers have been chaired by Aidan Barclay – the nephew of Sir Frederick Barclay, the octogenarian who alongside together with his late twin Sir David engineered the takeover of the Telegraph in 2004.
Lloyds had been locked in talks with the Barclays for years about refinancing loans made to them by HBOS previous to that financial institution’s rescue through the 2008 banking disaster.
A authorities spokesman declined to remark.
Source: information.sky.com”