Axel Springer Agrees to Buy U.K.’s Telegraph

The $766 million takeover is the latest twist for The Telegraph, an influential British newspaper whose ownership had been in limbo for years.

The owner of The Daily Telegraph, the British newspaper, said on Friday that it had agreed to sell itself to Axel Springer, the European media giant that owns Politico, for 575 million pounds, or $766 million.

The transaction is the latest twist for the 170-year-old Telegraph, a fixture of the British news landscape whose ownership has been in question for several years.

Just over three months ago, the newspaper — long known for its right-leaning politics and affinity for the Conservative Party, which earned it the nickname “The Torygraph” — appeared on track to be sold to the owner of The Daily Mail. That deal would have represented a significant consolidation of Britain’s news industry.

Now The Telegraph is set to become the latest media property of Axel Springer, a Berlin-based publisher whose empire has gone global. Over the past 11 years, Axel Springer has acquired Politico and Business Insider to expand internationally, particularly in the United States. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.

“To be the owner of this institution of quality British journalism is a privilege and a duty,” Mathias Döpfner, Axel Springer’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Owned for years by the billionaire Barclay family, The Telegraph became the object of repeated deal-making beginning in 2023, when lenders to the Barclays seized the publisher. RedBird IMI, a joint venture between the American investment firm RedBird Capital Partners and a company linked to Abu Dhabi’s royal family, agreed to buy the paper. It would have been overseen by Jeff Zucker, the former president of CNN.

But lawmakers in Britain essentially blocked the deal by passing a law barring foreign state investors from owning British newspapers.

RedBird Capital Partners then agreed to buy full control of The Telegraph, but walked away following intense scrutiny by lawmakers and in the news and the opinion pages of The Telegraph itself.

By late November, The Telegraph had entered into advanced sale talks with DMGT, the owner of The Daily Mail and other British publications, for £500 million. That potential deal would have marked substantial consolidation of the British news industry: The Daily Mail is Britain’s largest newspaper by circulation, while The Telegraph remains influential among Conservative lawmakers.

Some officials in Britain’s Labour government, including the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, raised concerns about whether DMGT would have gained too much power in that transaction.

Other potential suitors continued to circle The Telegraph, notably Dovid Efune, a British-born media executive who owns The New York Sun. Mr. Efune eventually added Axel Springer to a consortium backing his bid, but the German publisher eventually struck its own deal. (Axel Springer thanked Mr. Efune for “his essential support and assistance” for the deal announced on Friday.)

In his statement, Mr. Döpfner pledged to maintain The Telegraph’s editorial independence, calling it “sacrosanct,” and said that Axel Springer was working to obtain regulatory approval for the transaction.

He also outlined plans to make The Telegraph “the leading center-right media outlet in the English-speaking world,” including by helping it enter the U.S. market, expand digitally and adopt artificial intelligence tools.

And Mr. Döpfner noted that Axel Springer had tried, and failed, to buy The Telegraph more than 20 years ago. “Now our dream comes true,” he said.

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