Follow-aware
The British government has announced its intention to issue legislation preventing foreign countries from acquiring British newspapers, Foreign Secretary Stephen Parkinson announced against the backdrop of controversy surrounding foreign countries’ purchase of the conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper.
This announcement, which was issued in the House of Lords, comes at a time when the government intervened to study the process of selling the media group “The Telegraph” in the name of “public interest,” with the possibility of an American-Emirati consortium acquiring it.
The possibility of this takeover raised concerns among conservative MPs, given the newspaper’s ideological closeness to the ruling majority as well as human rights defenders. The Barclay family has owned the newspaper since 2004.
Last October, the British Lloyds Bank, the creditor of the Barclay family, put up for sale the “The Telegraph” group, which includes the conservative newspapers “The Telegraph” and the weekly “Spectator,” to pay off debts amounting to about 1.2 billion pounds ($1.38 billion). euro).
But a joint group between the American Redbird Fund and the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Fund (IMI), called “Redbird IMI,” reached an agreement with the family at the end of 2023 to pay off its debts – and this is what happened in December – In exchange for the acquisition of the group.
The Redbird IMI group confirmed that the UAE fund would be merely an “investor” away from interference, but that did not reassure the political class.
2024-03-15 13:17:06