A court docket listening to to liquidate a Barclay household holding corporations to be able to easy a sale of The Daily Telegraph is poised to be adjourned after a last-gasp provide to repay greater than £1bn to Lloyds Banking Group.
Sky News understands {that a} listening to scheduled to happen within the British Virgin Islands on Monday is predicted to be postponed whereas the financial institution considers the Barclays’ newest effort to finish the public sale of the broadsheet newspapers.
An software to adjourn the listening to was submitted late on Friday.
Sources mentioned this weekend that the Barclay household hoped to ship a full compensation of its long-standing debt to Lloyds by the top of the month.
The adjourned court docket listening to could be anticipated to happen shortly after that date if the Barclays don’t reach repaying the £1.16bn.
Initial presents for the Telegraph and Spectator are due on November 28, with the billionaire hedge fund tycoon Sir Paul Marshall and Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere among the many bidders.
Sky News revealed on Friday that RedBird IMI, an funding car run by Jeff Zucker, the previous CNN chief, is backing the Barclay household’s £1bn-plus bid to regain management of The Daily Telegraph.
RedBird IMI would lend roughly £600m to the household, with the stability of the debt being funded by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal household – mentioned to be Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan – the final word proprietor of a controlling stake in Manchester City Football Club.
If Lloyds is glad concerning the provenance and scale of the funding obtainable to the Barclays, it might settle for the debt compensation, thereby ending the public sale course of.
Mr Zucker’s credibility signifies that his partnership with the Barclays due to this fact has the potential to radically alter the dynamics of the Telegraph’s journey to new possession.
Mr Zucker is likely one of the world’s most outstanding media executives, having served as president of CNN for 9 years earlier than his departure final 12 months.
Nevertheless, rival bidders and Conservative MPs have begun to boost questions concerning the appropriateness of the Telegraph being financed largely by Middle Easter traders.
Neil O’Brien, the MP for Harborough, mentioned on Friday: “The Telegraph and Spectator are two of our most prestigious publications.
“Naturally there’s interest from around the world in gaining control of them.
“I hope [the government] will scrutinise the financing and possession construction of any deal intently and put them by the same old PIIN course of.”
There have been repeated questions in recent weeks about whether bids for the influential and traditionally Conservative-supporting Telegraph newspapers financed by Gulf investors would trigger a government probe.
Danny Kruger, a backbench Conservative MP with links to another of the Telegraph bidders, the hedge fund tycoon Sir Paul Marshall, wrote to the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, to urge her to issue a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN) into the funding.
Lloyds, which forced the Telegraph and Spectator magazine’s holding companies into receivership more than five months ago, has been engaged in a long-running stand-off with the family over its borrowings.
The success of the Barclays’ offer to repay its debt in full to Lloyds will also rest on the outcome of RedBird IMI’s due diligence.
The Barclays have made a series of increased offers in recent months to head off an auction, raising its proposal last month to £1bn.
Lloyds, however, has repeatedly told the family and its advisers that they should either repay the debt in full or participate in the auction alongside other bidders.
Talks orchestrated by Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, have now kicked off with prospective buyers, who also include the London-listed media group National World.
The new board of the Telegraph holding company has established an incentive plan to keep key employees motivated during the sale process, with collective financial rewards totalling millions of pounds.
Until June, the newspapers were chaired by Aidan Barclay – the nephew of Sir Frederick Barclay, the octogenarian who along with his late twin Sir David engineered the takeover of the Telegraph 19 years ago.
Lloyds had been locked in talks with the Barclays for years about refinancing loans made to them by HBOS prior to that bank’s rescue during the 2008 banking crisis.
The family’s debt to Lloyds also includes some funding tied to Very Group, the Barclay-owned online shopping business.
Ken Costa, the veteran City banker who advised the Barclay brothers on their purchase of the Telegraph in 2004 and counts the sale of Harrods to Qatar Holding among his other flagship deals, is acting as a strategic adviser to the family.
The Telegraph and Spectator disposals are being overseen by a new crop of directors led by Mike McTighe, the boardroom veteran who chairs Openreach and IG Group, the financial trading firm.
Mr McTighe has been appointed chairman of Press Acquisitions and May Corporation, the respective parent companies of TMG and The Spectator (1828), which publish the media titles.
In July, Telegraph Media Group (TMG) published full-year results showing pre-tax profits had risen by a third to about £39m in 2022.
A successful digital subscriptions strategy and “continued robust price administration” were cited as reasons for the company’s earnings growth.
“Our imaginative and prescient is to succeed in extra paying readers than at every other time in our historical past, and we’re firmly on observe to attain our 1 million subscriptions goal in 2023 forward of our year-end goal,” mentioned Nick Hugh, TMG chief govt..
Lloyds and a spokesman for the Barclay household declined to touch upon Saturday.
Headline: Telegraph court docket showdown adjourned after Barclays provide Lloyds £1.16bn deal
Standfirst: The Barclay household is aiming to repay a long-standing debt to Lloyds Banking Group inside a fortnight to regain management of The Daily Telegraph and Spectator, Sky News learns.
Source: information.sky.com”