Richard Desmond, proprietor of Express Newspapers, is understood to have instructed his financial advisors to put together a bid for the Telegraph Group, amid increasing interest in the assets of parent company Hollinger International (see Black Leaves Troubled Hollinger As Predators Circle).
The Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) is also understood to be among a group of interested parties that has already approached Lazard, the investment bank charged with examining strategic alternatives for Hollinger. Over the next few days potential bidders will be invited to scrutinise the books of Hollinger and its assets, which include the
Daily Telegraph,
Chicago Sun-Times and
Jerusalem Post.
It is unclear exactly which assets will be put up for sale as Hollinger attempts to alleviate its financial difficulties. Hollinger is also in the middle of a regulatory investigation into the recent admission that it filed false statements to the Securities & Exchange Commission about executive pay.
A report in today’s Independent claims that Desmond is pressing ahead with his plans and has ordered his financial advisors at Seymour Pierce to put together an offer capable of seeing off other potential bidders.
Desmond’s Express Newspapers would be able to move quickly on the titles and the group has an advantage over other interested parties in that it owns half of the print works where the Telegraph will be printed until 2009.
Meanwhile, Stephen Grabiner, the former managing director of the Telegraph Group, has also been tipped as a potential bidder, alongside Candover, the venture capital group which used to own Regional Independent Media. News International, publisher of the Times and Sun, is understood to have ruled itself out of the process.
