So much has changed in the generation since the Telegraph newspapers and the Spectator magazine were last put up for sale in 2004, including how much money they make. Yet one constant remains: the desire of very rich men to own them.
At least a dozen bidders have emerged as potential buyers in an auction meant to kick off this week, while the most recent owners have just come up with an audacious plan to win back control from Lloyds bank. This desire says a lot more about power than profit, and even more about modern Britain.
Why might one want to own a newspaper in 2023? Well, despite new television channels testing the limits of impartiality and accuracy, national newspapers still provide a key to influence and the news agenda. Influence is not black and white, of course, and few proprietors admit to having any over their independent journalists. This makes the fact that so few editorials go directly against proprietorial views a matter of pure coincidence.
Besides, simply owning a newspaper tends to put senior politicians on speed dial. Want proof? Just look at the dinners attended by, and texts exchanged between, Aidan Barclay and his most senior Telegraph executive and prime ministers David Cameron and Gordon Brown, which were revealed in evidence given to the Leveson inquiry. Much more effective to put your views across in the friendly setting of No 10, while the voters get to read all about them in your papers.
The timing has to be a factor as well. The auction of a newspaper regarded as the house journal of the Conservative party and a magazine that is the darling of the right a year before a general election is important. The new owners will be highly influential in picking a new Conservative leader if the party loses next year. They are also likely to be a target of a Keir Starmer charm offensive. Tony Blair was quick to invite editors of the paper to Downing Street, knowing that while it would never urge readers to vote Labour, positive coverage would help win support on the golf course or at the school gate.
This sort of power surely makes up for the fact that, even though it appeared to remain profitable for some time after its nearest rivals began losing money, owning the Telegraph did not help the Barclays pay off the large amount of debt they incurred to pay for it. When the Barclay brothers took control of the titles back in 2004, they fought off so many rivals that they ended up paying £665m for them, hundreds of millions more than they had hoped to in an abortive secret deal with the previous owner, Conrad Black.
In the easy money days of the 2000s, the Bank of Scotland lent the Barclays hundreds of millions without much in the way of guarantees, but was later rescued by a bailout from the British taxpayer. As was the even bigger bank that took it over, Lloyds Banking Group.
As advertisers and readers shifted online, circulations and profits fell. Meanwhile, the brothers, said to be worth £7bn according to the Sunday Times rich list, caught in their own real-life Succession saga, never repaid their debts to Lloyds, which eventually had mounted to more than £1bn. So, in June of this year, Lloyds seized control of the newspaper group.
On Monday, the Barclay family launched a last-minute attempt to keep the titles, reportedly funded by £1bn raised from investors in oil-rich Abu Dhabi. At that price, Lloyds could just hand back the keys to keep shareholders happy. As long as the money materialises, of course.
The identity of these investors is not yet known, though reports have mentioned Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a leading member of the ruling family of the Gulf state and the owner of Manchester City football club, as being involved in the talks. If the offer works, the Telegraph could end up in the hands of ultra-rich but little-known investors who managed to pay off the old owners’ debts without a change of ownership.
The question is whether the Barclay family can manage to convince the government and regulators that simply changing its bankers will not mean a change of ownership, thereby avoiding a review. There are laws in place designed to protect accuracy, freedom of expression and plurality of opinion governed by an act introduced just before the Barclays bought the papers. Lloyds won’t care, presumably, as long as it can convince its shareholders that the money is real.
Speed as well as price is of the essence. It is unlikely that a heavily regulated bank with 26 million customers of all political affiliations will want to own a Conservative-backing newspaper going into next year and the election. And so the auction will continue for now with bidders including the GB News backer Sir Paul Marshall; Lord Rothermere, the owner of the Daily Mail; and two losing bidders from last time, David Montgomery and German publisher Axel Springer.
All this interest suggests the titles aren’t just some ordinary financial asset. Conrad Black, an unusual Telegraph owner in the 1980s, being neither British nor titled, called the paper “the passport to other people’s drawing rooms”. He only sold it when he was facing legal challenges of his own. In letters from the time, David Barclay called owning the Telegraph a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”. He died two years ago but there are many men, not just in his family, who seem to agree.
Jane Martinson is a Guardian columnist. Her latest book is You May Never See Us Again, The Barclay Dynasty: A Story of Survival, Secrecy and Succession (Penguin Business, £25)
