Government to decide whether to progress sale of Telegraph

RedBird Capital Partners, the US private equity group that agreed to become the new owner of the Telegraph in May, has submitted a formal request to the government to progress the sale, having secured buy-in from other investors for a deal that values the newspaper at £500m.

- Barney Macintyre & Stephen Armstrong

It now falls to Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, to decide whether to issue a second public interest intervention notice (PIIN) which would trigger more investigations into a takeover that has been held up for months.

The DCMS was notified of the sale of a “call option agreement” on Friday afternoon by RedBird IMI, the Abu Dhabi-based investment vehicle led by Jeff Zucker, that had to restrict its stake in the right-leaning newspaper after a new law capped foreign state ownership of UK titles to 15%.