Zahawi in talks to help Efune clinch £550m Telegraph takeover

Published

5 months ago

November 4, 2024

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The former Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi is in talks to smooth the path to a takeover of The Daily Telegraph being led by the New York-based media investor Dovid Efune.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Zahawi has been working for several weeks with LionTree, Mr Efune’s investment banking adviser, on the deal, which is expected to be worth in the region of £550m.

City sources said on Monday that Mr Efune, proprietor of the New York Sun, was exploring securing a portion of funding for the takeover from Sir Mohamed Mansour, the former Tory treasurer.

In September, Sky News revealed that Sir Mohamed had been approached to provide as much as £150m to a standalone bid for the Telegraph titles that was being spearheaded by Mr Zahawi.

Mr Efune subsequently secured a period of exclusivity to finalise a deal before the end of November, and is now lining up financial backers to help clinch the deal, aided by the former Tory chancellor.

If completed, the transaction will crystallise an unlikely profit for RedBird IMI, the Abu Dhabi-backed vehicle which paid £600m to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine.

One source said that depending on the final structuring of the deal, it could be worth as much as £575m

The Spectator was recently sold for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, who has installed Michael Gove, the former cabinet minister, as its editor.

Insiders said that Mr Zahawi was likely to be handed an ongoing role at the Telegraph if the bid from Mr Efune was successful.

The former chancellor, education secretary and vaccines minister has been involved in the Telegraph process in various guises, initially helping broker a deal with RedBird IMI before assembling his own offer.

He has close connections to many of the Gulf-based figures involved in the process, including Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, chairman of the bidding vehicle.

Mr Zahawi has also since been named chairman of Very Group, the online retailer owned by the Barclay family which controlled the Telegraph for two decades, and which is now part-funded by IMI.

The UAE-based IMI, which is controlled by the UAE’s deputy prime minister and ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, extended a further £600m to the Barclays to pay off a loan owed to Lloyds Banking Group, with the balance secured against other family assets.

Spokesmen for Mr Efune, Sir Mohamed and RedBird IMI all declined to comment on Monday, while Mr Zahawi could not be reached for comment.

The former minister has said little publicly about his interest in a role at the Telegraph, although he did tell Sky News presenter Sophy Ridge in September that it “would be an incredible honour for me, a real privilege if I were ever to… chair the Telegraph [or] be involved with [it]”.

Sir Mohamed, who has donated millions of pounds to the Tories, was knighted earlier this year – a move which was lambasted by critics of the honours system.

His family office, Man Capital, is the second-biggest shareholder in the coffee shop chain Caffe Nero, while he owns San Diego FC, a new Major League Soccer franchise which will make its debut next year.

The London-based billionaire was the Tories’ senior treasurer from late 2022 until this year’s general election.

Mr Efune’s bid has raised the extraordinary possibility of a return to the British newspaper group for Conrad Black, its former proprietor, Sky News reported earlier in the autumn.

Lord Black, who ceased to be a member of the House of Lords earlier this year on the grounds of his non-attendance, writes regular opinion pieces for the digital title and was a founding director of its publisher.

For decades, Lord Black was a colossal figure in the newspaper industry both in Britain and beyond, overseeing titles at Hollinger International which included the Telegraph, The Jerusalem Post and the Chicago Sun-Times.

He acquired an initial stake in the Telegraph group in 1985, before gaining full control later that year.

After being convicted in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice, he spent three-and-a-half years in prison, and in 2019 was pardoned by President Trump.

Other bidders for the Telegraph included National World, the London-listed vehicle headed by former Mirror newspapers chief David Montgomery, and Lord Saatchi, the former advertising mogul, who offered £350m.

Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail proprietor, pulled out of the bidding earlier in the summer amid concerns that he would be blocked on competition grounds.

The Telegraph auction is being run by Raine Group and Robey Warshaw, the advisers to the Abu Dhabi-backed entity which was thwarted in its efforts to buy the media titles by a change in ownership law.

Business

Insurer Hiscox lines up chairman months after Bayesian sinking

Published

13 hours ago

April 7, 2025

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Hiscox, the London-listed insurer, is close to naming a new chairman nearly eight months after the drowning of Jonathan Bloomer on the luxury yacht of technology tycoon Mike Lynch.

Sky News has learnt that Hiscox has narrowed its search to candidates including Richard Berliand, who chairs the interdealer broker TP ICAP.

Insurance insiders said that Mr Berliand was among fewer than a handful of potential successors to Mr Bloomer.

The sinking of the Bayesian off the Sicilian coast last August claimed the lives of Mr Lynch and his daughter, along with five other passengers, including Mr Bloomer.

A former boss of Prudential, Mr Bloomer was a well-liked figure in the City.

He had chaired Hiscox for just a year when he died.

The identities of the other candidates being considered by the company were unclear on Monday.

Hiscox, which has a market capitalisation of just over £3.8bn, has seen its shares slip by about 12pc over the last year.

It was founded as a single underwriter at Lloyd’s in 1901.

A Hiscox spokesperson declined to comment.

Business

Asian stock markets tumble – with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index suffering worst fall for 28 years

Published

18 hours ago

April 7, 2025

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Asian stock markets tumble - with Hong Kong's Hang Seng index suffering worst fall for 28 years

Asian stock markets have fallen dramatically amid escalating fears of a global trade war – as Donald Trump called his tariffs “medicine” and showed no sign of backing down.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index of shares closed down 13.2% – its biggest drop since 1997, while the Shanghai composite index lost 7.3% – the worst fall there since 2020.

Taiwan’s stock market was also hammered, losing nearly 10% on Monday, its biggest one-day drop on record.

Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 7.8%, while London’s FTSE 100 was down 4.85% by 9am.

Tariffs latest – FTSE falls after Asian markets tumble

US stock market futures signalled further losses were ahead when trading begins in America later.

At 4am EST, the S&P 500 futures was down 4.93%, the Dow Jones 4.32% and the Nasdaq 5.33%.

Markets are reacting to ongoing uncertainty over the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on goods imported to the US, which he announced last week.

Speaking on Air Force One on Sunday, Mr Trump said foreign governments would have to pay “a lot of money” to lift his tariffs.

“I don’t want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said.

The US president said world leaders were trying to convince him to lower further tariffs, which are due to take effect this week.

“I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian, from all over the world,” Mr Trump told reporters.

“They’re dying to make a deal. And I said, we’re not going to have deficits with your country.

“We’re not going to do that because to me, a deficit is a loss. We’re going to have surpluses or, at worst, going to be breaking even.”

Mr Trump, who spent much of the weekend playing golf in Florida, posted on his Truth Social platform: “WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy.”

President Trump believes his policy will make the US richer, forcing companies to relocate more manufacturing to America and creating jobs.

However, his announcement has shocked stock markets, triggered retaliatory levies from China and sparked fears of a global trade war.

Reality hits that trade war no longer just a threat

China’s announcement of its tariff retaliation came late afternoon on Friday local time.

Most Asian markets closed shortly after – and markets in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan were closed for a public holiday – meaning the scale of the hit did not play out until today.

This morning we are getting a sense of the impact. Dramatic falls across all Asian markets clearly signal a realisation a global trade war is no longer just a threat, but a reality here to stay, and a global recession could yet follow.

Up until Friday, China’s response to Donald Trump’s tariffs had been perceived as restrained and designed to avoid escalation, the markets had reacted accordingly.

But that all changed last week when Mr Trump’s new 34% levy on all Chinese goods was matched by China with an identical tax. Both sit on top of previous tariffs levied, meaning many goods now face rates in excess of 50%.

These are numbers that make most trade between the world’s two biggest economies almost impossible and that will have a global impact.

China has clearly decided any forthcoming pain will have to be managed, and not being seen to be cowed and bullied by Mr Trump is being deemed more important.

But the scale of the retaliation will have further spooked the markets as it makes the prospect of negotiation and retreat increasingly unlikely.

Mr Trump added to the atmosphere of intransigence when he told the media on Sunday the trade deficit with China would need to be addressed before any deal could be done. The complete lack of concern from the White House over the weekend will also not have helped.

While smaller economies like Japan, South Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam are all lining up to attempt to negotiate, there are a lot of nations in that queue.

There is a sense none of this will be easily rectified.

US customs agents began collecting Mr Trump’s baseline 10% tariff on Saturday.

Higher “reciprocal” tariffs of between 11% and 50% – depending on the country – are due to kick in on Wednesday.

Investors and world leaders are unsure whether the US tariffs are here to stay or a negotiating tactic to win concessions from other countries.

Richard Flax, chief investment officer at wealth manager Moneyfarm, said: “I guess there was some hope over the weekend that maybe we would see this as part of the start of a negotiation.

“But the messages that we’ve so far seen suggest that the President Trump is comfortable with the market reaction and that he’s going to continue on this course.

Goldman Sachs has raised the odds of a US recession to 45%, joining other investment banks that have also revised their forecasts.

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In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer has promised “bold changes” and said he would relax rules around electric vehicles as British carmakers deal with a new 25% US tariff on vehicles.

The prime minister said “global trade is being transformed” by President Trump’s actions.

KPMG has warned tariffs on UK exports could see GDP growth fall to 0.8% in 2025 and 2026.

The accountancy firm said higher tariffs on specific categories, such as cars, aluminium and steel, would more than offset the exemption on pharmaceutical exports, leaving the effective tariff rate around 12%.

Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said: “Given the economic impact that tariffs would cause, there is a strong incentive to seek a negotiated settlement that diminishes the need for tariffs.

“The UK automotive manufacturing sector is particularly exposed given the complex supply chains of some producers.”

Business

Trump’s tariffs: A negotiating tactic or the start of an ‘economic nuclear winter’?

Published

20 hours ago

April 7, 2025

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Trump's tariffs: A negotiating tactic or the start of an 'economic nuclear winter'?

Traders called this morning a complete bloodbath as the UK’s FTSE 100 joined world indexes in turning red as uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs continued to batter stock markets.

Across Asia and Europe, hundreds of billions have been wiped off companies’ values, particularly in banking and manufacturing.

The cause is not just the imposition of those tariffs (the largest the US has inflicted since the 1930s) and the very obvious drag this will have on global trade and growth, but also the uncertainty of ‘what next?’.

Trump tariffs latest: Musk shares video about ‘essential’ free market

Investors cannot work out if the Trump administration is genuinely wedded to tariffs on this scale, on the proviso that they will help re-shore companies and millions of jobs to the United States.

They don’t know if they are permanent or merely part of a negotiating tactic to address trade imbalances, and for America to use its economic heft to strike better deals.

If Mr Trump is open to deals (the first test comes later in a meeting with the Israeli prime minister), markets will calm, even if the midst of uncertainty hasn’t fully cleared.

However, if this is a genuine rewiring of global trade and the end of globalisation as we know it, markets and economies will continue to get battered.

As one Trump supporter, billionaire Bill Ackman – who opposes the tariffs – put it, President Trump has launched a “global economic war against the whole world” that will usher in an “economic nuclear winter.”

It’s time for all of us to buckle up.