Germany’s largest newspaper publisher has struck a deal to buy the Daily Telegraph, it was announced today.
Axel Springer, which owns the German mass-market tabloid Bild and broadsheet Die Welt, has put up £575million in cash to acquire the 170-year-old British newspaper.
The Telegraph had been in line to be bought by DMGT, the publisher of the Daily Mail, for £500million.
That deal had been welcomed after the broadsheet newspaper had suffered a long period of uncertainty over its future, and was in the process of being formally scrutinised by regulatory bodies.
But yesterday Axel Springer, which has been expanding into English-speaking markets in recent years, announced it had struck a deal with the Telegraph’s owner RedBird IMI, an international consortium which stepped in to purchase the newspaper in 2023 and has since been looking for a buyer.
DMGT said it wished ‘every success to Axel Springer and the Telegraph’ as it criticised the ‘protracted and out-of-date’ media regulation that delayed its deal.
Axel Springer – named after the newspaperman who founded the company after the Second World War – previously unsuccessfully bid for the Telegraph in 2004 and for the Financial Times in 2015.
Chief executive and controlling shareholder Mathias Döpfner, 63, said Axel Springer had ‘built his company inspired by the tradition of Fleet Street’ and called the Telegraph ‘his North Star’.
Mathias Döpfner, the chief executive and controlling shareholder of Germany’s biggest newspaper publisher Axel Springer which has struck a deal to buy the Daily Telegraph
Mr Döpfner said the German media company had been ‘inspired by the tradition of Fleet Street’ as he announced a deal to buy the 170-year-old British broadsheet newspaper
A spokesman for RedBird IMI, which was blocked from taking control by a ban on foreign state ownership of newspapers, said: ‘With the strength of their commercial offer and a straightforward regulatory path to ownership we believe that Axel Springer is well placed to take the Telegraph forward into its next chapter.’
DMGT said in a statement: ‘DMGT confirms that RedBird IMI has advised it has entered into an agreement with Axel Springer for the potential takeover of the Telegraph Media Group.
‘We have worked hard to complete the acquisition of the Telegraph and were confident that the organisation would have thrived under our long-term stewardship.
‘We were optimistic about our plans to invest in its exceptional journalism and secure the future of a respected British media brand.
‘We wish every success to Axel Springer and the Telegraph.
‘We believe that the protracted and out-of-date regulatory framework guarantees that UK-based national newspaper groups are at a huge competitive disadvantage in any merger process.’
It remains possible that the Government will investigate Axel Springer’s takeover for its impact on the public interest, a process that would be likely to take months.
Axel Springer had revenues of €3.8billion (£3.3billion) and reported a profit of €738million (£639million) last year, making it one of the world’s largest news publishers. In 2021, it paid a reported $1billion (£750million) to acquire the US political website Politico, and in December last year Mr Döpfner told The Wall Street Journal he was ‘ready to move’ on other major acquisitions.
Axel Springer’s journalists in Germany are required to sign a pledge committing to certain principles including supporting Israel’s right to exist and the ‘fundamental’ alliance between the US and Europe. However, it did not apply these principles to its American employees when it bought Politico.
Yesterday the company said owning the Telegraph would enable the British newspaper ‘to access Axel Springer’s successful track record in developing journalism in a digital and A.I. world’.