Dovid Efune’s bid for the Telegraph: What you need to know
New York Sun owner Dovid Efune has emerged as the likely buyer of the Telegraph.
Efune, who was born in Manchester and currently lives in the US, is said to have offered £550m ($722m) to buy the politically conservative publication.
He is reported to be working with Oaktree Capital Management and boutique investment bank LionTree to raise the funds required to buy the Telegraph.
The sale could officially occur as early as this week.
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The Media Leader columnist and former BBC presenter Raymond Snoddy said Efune “appeared to come out of nowhere” in early September when it was first reported that he was seeking to lodge a competitive bid for the newspaper.
Media analyst Alex DeGroote told The Media Leader that Efune was “certainly not on the original shortlist of Telegraph acquirers” but that current owner RedBird IMI is likely “just looking for the best price”.
Previous bidders included Lord Saatchi, founder of ad agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and M&C Saatchi, whose £350m bid was rejected in August. In a statement to Sky News, Lord Saatchi and co-bidder Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild said they were “sorry Redbird IMI overpaid with £600m for the Telegraph“.
Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, also previously pulled out of the race to buy the title over fears that a purchase would draw DMGT into “a heightened risk of a protracted regulatory process if we were to win the auction”.
Other interested parties have included David Montgomery’s National World, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, GB News backer Sir Paul Marshall and former Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi.
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RedBird IMI, the investment company that led a consortium between US investment group RedBird Capital Partners and United Arab Emirates vice-president Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, purchased the Telegraph and sister publication The Spectator from the Barclay family in December 2023. However, the government intervened in the sale, referring it to the Competition & Markets Authority and Ofcom over concerns that the paper would be sold to a foreign government official.
Legislation was then put forward in March that would ban foreign states from owning British newspapers and magazines. RedBird IMI subsequently put Telegraph Media Group back up for sale.
In September, Sir Paul Marshall, who also owns the news and commentary website UnHerd, purchased The Spectator for £100m. Marshall, who had been in the bidding for the Telegraph as well, pulled out late last month and has opted to commit investment to Bari Weiss’ media startup, The Free Press.
LionTree was founded in 2012 by US investor Aryeh Bourkoff and has worked on notable media and tech deals, including Verizon’s acquisitions of AOL and Yahoo in 2015 and 2016 respectively; Amazon’s 2022 acquisition of MGM Studios; and The New York Times‘ acquisition of The Athletic, also in 2022.
It is not yet clear who the investors bankrolling Efune’s purchase are, nor their rationale for doing so.
‘Does his team have the experience?’
Efune is the proprietor of The New York Sun, a conservative news website and, from 2002-2008, a printed newspaper. In 2021, Efune purchased the title, which had been publishing online inconsistently, and revived the brand as a full-time publication.
Before The New York Sun, Efune, who is Jewish, worked as CEO and editor-in-chief of the Algemeiner Journal, a New York-based newspaper focused on covering Jewish and Israel-related news. As leader of the Algemeiner, he was responsible for switching the paper from publishing in Yiddish to English.
“It is hard to compare [The New York Sun] to the Telegraph, which is a £250m revenue, £47m Ebitda business,” DeGroote told The Media Leader. He added: “Does his team have the experience to manage a business of this size?”
Given the Telegraph‘s importance within the UK market as a historically conservative-friendly paper, DeGroote further called the sale “highly significant and controversial”.
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The curious case of Conrad Black
Efune has been outspoken on social media in recent weeks in relation to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. On X, for example, he has expressed strong support for Israel during the conflict.
A notable connection to Efune is former Telegraph owner Conrad Black, Baron of Crossharbour, who is a founding director and contributing editor at The New York Sun.
Black sold The Telegraph to the Barclay brothers in 2004 but, according to a Guardian report in July, Black had been approached about a potential bid to repurchase it.
At The New York Sun, Black has regularly penned opinion articles critical of the US Democratic Party.
Black was convicted of fraud charges in 2007 by a district court in Chicago, including for embezzlement and obstruction of justice. He served 42 months in prison but was later granted a federal pardon by then US president Donald Trump.