One of the world’s largest investment groups is in talks to help finance a £550m takeover of The Daily Telegraph by the owner of The New York Sun.

Sky News has learnt that Apollo Global Management, which oversees assets worth $733bn, has been holding initial talks with Dovid Efune and his advisers in recent days about lending part of the money required for the deal.

Banking sources said on Tuesday that the discussions were preliminary in nature and might not lead to an agreement.

Other debt providers are also in talks with Mr Efune, the sources added.

The development has emerged just three days before an exclusivity period for the US-based businessman expires, although insiders say it is almost certain to be extended.

Apollo ranks among the world’s biggest financial institutions and is a major player in both private equity and private credit around the globe.

In the last fortnight, a string of media reports have cast doubt on Mr Efune’s ability to complete the deal, with potential lenders including Oaktree Capital Management and Hudson Bay Capital said to have withdrawn from the process.

Sky News revealed at the start of November that the former Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and the party’s former treasurer, Sir Mohamed Mansour, had been enlisted by Mr Efune to aid his bid for the right-leaning newspapers.

Mr Zahawi, who has been tipped for a peerage in Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list, and Sir Mohamed are expected to invest tens of millions of pounds in the deal if it goes ahead.

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 were being spearheaded at the time by Mr Zahawi.

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.

Depending on the final structuring of the deal, it could be worth as much as £575m, with less than a third of that expected to be in the form of debt.

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.

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.

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.

Apollo declined to comment.

The trend of shop prices falling may be reversing as businesses face higher costs, according to industry data.

The pace of price drops slowed this month, according to figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

November was the first time in 17 months that the inflation rate was higher than a month earlier.

While shop prices dropped 0.8% in October compared to a year earlier, the fall slowed 0.6% in November, according to BRC figures.

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The figures may signal the end of falling inflation given cost pressures being placed on big businesses, according to BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson.

Retailers face a barrage of costs which the BRC forecasts will amount to an extra £7bn for retail businesses next year.

Budget measures such as the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions and a higher minimum wage form part of those costs as does the forthcoming packaging tax to fund recycling efforts.

These extra costs will just push up consumer prices, Ms Dickinson said.

“Retail already operates on slim margins, so these new costs will inevitably lead to higher prices.”

The official measure of inflation is already on the up with the first rise in three months recorded in October as energy bills rose. The rate of price rises rose sharply to 2.3% from 1.7% recorded a month earlier as the energy price cap was hiked.

If the government wants to prevent higher shop prices it must reconsider the April 2025 timeline for the new packaging levy and reduce the commercial property tax known as business rates “as early as possible”, Ms Dickinson added.

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Chancellor Rachel Reeves promises she will not raise taxes again

The minimum wage uplift will bring pay for people over 21 to £12.21 an hour and take effect in April. People aged 18 to 20 will have to earn at least £10 an hour – something the TUC (Trades Union Congress) said could benefit 420,000 young people – as part of the government’s goal of paying the same minimum wage to all workers, regardless of age.

Also from April, employers will have to pay more national insurance for their staff.

Businesses’ national insurance contributions will increase from 13.8% to 15% with the current £9,100 threshold at which employers start to pay the tax on employees’ earnings lowering to £5,000.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has defended the increase saying half of all businesses – roughly a million firms – are paying either less or the same national insurance contributions as they were before the budget due to the uprated employment allowance, a tax credit for some employers.

There will be no more tax rises or borrowing for the duration of this government’s term, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said.

She told business leaders there will not be another budget like her maiden announcement, which included a rise in employers’ national insurance contributions and the national minimum wage.

“I’m not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes. And that is why at this budget, we did wipe the slate clean to put public finances and public services on a firm footing,” she told attendees at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) conference.

“As a result, we won’t have to do a budget like this ever again.”

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Ms Reeves’ budget has faced sharp criticism from major UK businesses who have said the policy measures will cost them millions, forcing them to raise prices and cut jobs.

Analysis from independent forecasters the Office for Budget Responsibility said the budget would cause inflation to be higher than originally predicted, adding to the disquiet.

But Ms Reeves has insisted there is no alternative to her policies.

“I’ve heard a lot of feedback but what I haven’t heard is a lot of alternatives,” she said on Monday afternoon.

The £22bn “black hole” in public finances needed to be plugged, which necessitated “difficult decisions”, Ms Reeves reiterated.

Full consultation on the employer taxes could not take place with firms, she added, because budgets are supposed to be made to MPs in the Commons and not leaked to industry or the media.

“It is the nature of budgets that you can’t announce or consult in the way over tax rates that you can with other policies,” she said.

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Earlier on Monday, the head of the CBI, one of the UK’s most prominent business groups, said the budget business tax rises will hit firms rather than encourage growth.

A key goal of the Labour government is to grow the economy.

Kingfisher, the owner of Screwfix and B&Q, also said on Monday that the national insurance changes alone would force up its costs by £31m in the next financial year.

Meanwhile, the boss of McVitie’s, Jacob’s and Carr’s said the UK was losing its appeal for his business.

“We would like to continue to be a major investor going forward,” said Salman Amin, chief executive of snack food company Pladis.

But, he warned: “It’s becoming harder to understand what the case for investment is.”