Foreign state investors would be allowed to hold stakes of up to 15% in British national newspapers, ministers are set to announce amid a two-year battle to resolve an impasse over The Daily Telegraph’s ownership.

Sky News has learnt that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport could announce as soon as Thursday that the new limit is to be imposed following a consultation lasting several months.

The decision to set the ownership threshold at 15% follows an intensive lobbying campaign by newspaper industry executives concerned that a permanent outright ban could cut off a vital source of funding to an already-embattled industry.

It would mean that RedBird IMI, the Abu Dhabi state-backed fund which owns an option to take full ownership of the Telegraph titles, would be able to play a role in the newspapers’ future.

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RedBird Capital, the US-based fund, has already said it is exploring the possibility of taking full control of the Telegraph, while IMI would have – if the status quo had been maintained – forced to relinquish any involvement in the right-leaning broadsheets.

One industry source said they had been told to expect a statement from Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, or another DCMS minister, this week, with the amendment potentially being made in the form of a statutory instrument.

Other than RedBird, a number of suitors for the Telegraph have expressed interest but struggled to raise the funding for a deal.

The most notable of these has been Dovid Efune, owner of The New York Sun, who has been trying for months to raise the £550m sought by RedBird IMI to recoup its outlay.

Another potential offer from Todd Boehly, the Chelsea Football Club co-owner, and media tycoon David Montgomery, has yet to materialise.

RedBird IMI paid £600m in 2023 to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine.

That objective was thwarted by a change in media ownership laws – which banned any form of foreign state ownership – amid an outcry from parliamentarians.

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

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-controlled assets.

Other bidders for the Telegraph had included Lord Saatchi, the former advertising mogul, who offered £350m, while Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail proprietor, pulled out of the bidding last summer amid concerns that he would be blocked on competition grounds.

The Telegraph’s ownership had been left in limbo by a decision taken by Lloyds Banking Group, the principal lender to the Barclay family, to force some of the newspapers’ related corporate entities into a form of insolvency proceedings.

The newspaper auction is being run by Raine Group and Robey Warshaw.

The DCMS declined to comment.

Burberry, the UK’s only global luxury brand, is to cut around 1,700 jobs worldwide over the next two years after reporting a steep financial loss.

The company lost £66m in pre-tax profit in the year ended in March as luxury goods sales fell across the world and the company weathered an “uncertain” environment and a “difficult macroeconomic backdrop”.

A year earlier, it recorded £383m in profit.

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It’s suffered in recent years with the share price falling to such an extent the business was removed from the FTSE 100, the index of most valuable companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Despite the financial performance, the company was upbeat, with chief executive Joshua Schulman saying “I am more optimistic than ever that Burberry’s best days are ahead and that we will deliver sustainable profitable growth over time”.

What cuts are being made?

The retailer did not specify any shop closures – in the past year, it closed 26 and also opened 26 stores – but did highlight shift cuts and consolidations.

“We don’t have a store closing programme, per see,” Mr Schulman told investors

The night shift at Burberry’s Castleford factory will be cut, it proposed, saying the shift has resulted in overproduction.

“Significant” investment in the facility will be made, however, as the ambition is to scale up British production “over time”, Mr Schulman said.

Changes to the retail network across the world will be made with shop staff being scheduled around “peak traffic”.

Burberry will be “realigning” shop staff, he said, “so that we can offer the best service” at the busiest times.

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There will also be a “simplification” of Burberry’s regional structure and a “rebalancing” of central and regional responsibilities to reduce duplication and “accelerate decision making” through the retail network.

But the majority of changes will be made to “office space teams” around the world, the CEO said.

Commercial and creative teams have already been consolidated, Burberry’s annual results said.

What’s gone wrong?

Aside from the global slowdown in luxury goods sales over recession fears, additional headwinds have come in the form of President Trump’s tariffs.

“Clearly, the external environment has become more challenging since mid-February”, Mr Schulman told investors.

Tariff risks were higher than first planned, the annual results said.

It led the US market to be described by Mr Schulman as “choppy” since February when Mr Trump began announcing tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, as well as on goods such as steel and cars.

Sales also fell in the Asia Pacific region by 16%, the results showed.

Criticism was levelled at the 2021 British government decision to withdraw VAT refunds for overseas visitors, “which has made the UK the least competitive destination in Europe for tourist shopping”, the results read.

“Business in our UK home market continues to be seriously impacted” by the move.

The chairman of the UK’s biggest water company has apologised to customers but defended staff bonus payments.

Sir Adrian Montague, of Thames Water, told MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee that the utility firm, which supplies 16 million customers in London and parts of south England, was sorry.

He said: “We know the supply interruptions cause inconvenience and sometimes real hardship, and so I think the right thing to do is to start the discussion of the [company’s] turnaround plan by acknowledging we haven’t always served our customers as well as we should, and through the committee, apologising to them.”

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Customers faced significant service disruption in recent years, including a boil water notice in Bramley, near Guildford, last summer and a 40% rise in sewage spills in 2024.

It’s also struggled to raise investment, repay its debt pile, which now stands at £19bn after an emergency loan prevented it from running out of money and entering state control.

Despite the massive debt pile, Sir Adrian defended paying bonuses, saying the company was in “a competitive marketplace” and “we have to keep staff”.

“It’s true that this business, like many businesses, needs to reward its staff effectively”, he told committee members. “We do need to reward [staff] competitively.”

If bonuses were not paid, “people will come knocking, they’ll try to pick out of us the best staff we’ve got”, Sir Adrian added.

“But the amounts of bonuses paid to staff is very small compared with the capital cost of the works that we were considering,” he said.

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In the first three months of his tenure, which began in January 2024, Thames Water’s chief executive Chris Weston accepted a bonus of £195,000 as part of his £2.3m pay package.

His bonus can be up to 156% of his salary as a bonus, while frontline workers can only earn between 3% and 6%, he said.

When approached by Sky News on Tuesday, Mr Weston said he was sorry for the service that the customers received and “it’s not where we would like it to be, everyone is very committed in terms of trying and sorting it out”.

Customer bills are to rise 35% to about £588 annually per household by 2030, a figure which Thames Water is seeking to increase.