MPs name for inquiry into how RedBird Capital is investment £500m Telegraph deal

A cross-party workforce of MPs and friends has known as on ministers to analyze how a US non-public fairness corporate is investment its £500m takeover of the Telegraph.

In a letter despatched to the tradition secretary, Lisa Nandy, closing week, the MPs stated there was once a chance of “potential Chinese state influence” in RedBird Capital.

They stated the company’s chair, John Thornton, sat at the advisory council of China’s sovereign wealth fund and had high-level conferences with Chinese Communist celebration figures in 2024 and this 12 months.

RedBird Capital introduced closing month it had agreed a deal to shop for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, finishing two years of uncertainty over the way forward for the titles.

The MPs’ letter stated there was once “a lack of transparency regarding the source of the funds behind this acquisition” and that it was once “conceivable, and increasingly likely, that funds could be sourced directly or indirectly from foreign state actors” together with China.

A supply just about RedBird stated there have been no Chinese state finances concerned within the deal.

The letter to Nandy was once signed by way of six Conservative MPs together with Iain Duncan Smith and Tom Tugendhat, the Labour MPs Alex Sobel and Marie Rimmer, the Liberal Democrats’ Christine Jardine and the Scottish National celebration’s Chris Law.

The Tory friends Kevin Shinkwin and Catherine Meyer and the crossbenchers Frances D’Souza and David Alton have been additionally a few of the signatories.

They known as on Nandy to “initiate a full and transparent investigation into the acquisition”, believe its nationwide safety implications and evaluate Thornton’s “suitability in owning and controlling a UK media outlet”.

It is known that even if the proposed deal will in the end want regulatory approval, no proposal has been submitted to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for evaluate but. Only a industrial settlement in idea has been reached.

While RedBird Capital has been in talks with further buyers in the USA and UK, the deal is absolutely funded and no longer contingent on them coming onboard. RedBird Capital will change into the only real controlling proprietor.

The US non-public fairness workforce is purchasing the Telegraph titles from RedBird IMI, which took keep an eye on of the newspapers in November 2023 after agreeing to pay money owed owed by way of the former house owners the Barclay circle of relatives.

RedBird Capital contributed 1 / 4 of the investment to RedBird IMI, with the opposite three-quarters funded by way of International Media Investments (IMI), an organization owned by way of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the landlord of Manchester City.

Sheikh Mansour is vice-president of the United Arab Emirates, and issues over the consortium’s hyperlinks to Abu Dhabi brought about a marketing campaign towards the takeover that culminated in the United Kingdom executive introducing a legislation in March closing 12 months blockading international states or related folks from proudly owning British newspaper belongings. This compelled RedBird IMI to put the titles again up on the market.

Under the law, which remains to be going via parliament, ministers stated they might permit international states to possess stakes of as much as 15% in British newspapers.

Subject to the law, underneath RedBird Capital’s acquisition IMI could be decreased to a minority stake consistent with the brand new cap.

The MPs and friends’ letter stated permitting the sale to head via would make a mockery of the law, including: “Those who have invested in RedBird should surely be known before any final sale approval can be allowed.”

The DCMS was once contacted for remark.