Rights groups say Telegraph sale to US equity firm should be stopped

A group of nine human rights and freedom of expression organisations has called on the culture secretary to halt RedBird Capital's proposed £500m takeover of the Telegraph and investigate the US private equity company's ties to China.

- Mark Sweney Patrick Wintour

The international non-governmental organisations, which include Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders and Article 19, have written to Lisa Nandy arguing that RedBird Capital's links with China "threaten media pluralism, transparency and information integrity in the UK".

A consortium led by RedBird Capital agreed a deal in May to buy the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, ending two years of uncertainty over the future of the titles.

The organisations said RedBird Capital's chair, John Thornton, sits on the advisory council of the China Investment Corporation, the country's largest sovereign wealth fund. Thornton, a former chair of Goldman Sachs Asia, has also previously chaired the Silk Road Finance Corporation.

"Both [are] vehicles through which China has pursued financial influence," the letter said.

The signatories, who also include Hong Kong Watch, Human Rights in China and the Hong Kong Democracy Council, said Nandy should follow her predecessor, Lucy Frazer, who issued a public interest intervention notice (PIIN) in January last year.