Billionaire Len Blavatnik has reportedly been approached by Redbird Capital Partners about making an investment in The Telegraph, one of U.K.’s most influential newspapers.
Redbird Capital has initiated talks with Blavatnik about becoming a minority investor in The Telegraph, Sky News reported Thursday, citing two sources close to the situation. The report also stated that no agreement had been reached, and it remained unclear whether one would be.
Redbird Capital declined to comment. A spokesperson for Blavatnik’s investment firm Access Industries said, “As a matter of principle, Sir Leonard does not comment on market speculation or on any conversations Access may or may not be having regarding potential investments.”
Blavatnik’s investments span a range of industries and countries. Forbes estimates his net worth at $25.6 billion, placing him at No. 80 on the Real-Time Billionaires List. He is probably best known these days for investments in businesses like Warner Music, streaming service DAZN, chemicals firm LyondellBassell and energy conglomerate Calpine.
Blavatnik was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to philanthropy in 2017. He has given or pledged more than $1 billion to philanthropic endeavors with a particular emphasis on supporting universities, including Harvard, Stanford and Yale.
Last week, a cross-party group of parliamentarians urged the government to investigate how Redbird Capital is funding its takeover of the venerable British newspaper, according to a report in The Guardian.
The group were said to have sent a letter to culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, expressing their concerns about the risk of “potential Chinese state influence” within Redbird Capital.
They MPs point out that the firm’s chairman, John Thornton, has served on the advisory council of CIC, China’s sovereign wealth fund, and had high-level meetings with Chinese Communist Party members in recent years.
The MPs wrote in their letter there was a lack of transparency regarding the sources of funding for the £500 million ($674 million) acquisition, and they contend that it’s “conceivable, and increasingly likely, that funds could be sourced directly or indirectly from foreign state actors.”
But sources close to Redbird Capital confirmed there were no Chinese state funds involved in the proposed acquisition. A consortium of U.K. and U.S. investors will form a new consortium for the deal, led by Redbird Capital. United Arab Emirates-based International Media Investments (IMI) is expected to be a minority investor, subject to new legislation that’s currently progressing through parliament.
The talks are still ongoing, the sources indicated, so no new deal structure has been put into place and submitted for government approval yet.
The Telegraph had been the subject of a two-year takeover saga that began when the Conservative-leaning newspaper was seized by Lloyds bank after the Barclay family failed to repay debts of more than £1 billion.
A joint venture between Redbird Capital and IMI effectively gained control of The Telegraph in 2023, after providing a £600 million loan to the Barclay family. But the Conservative government at the time blocked the deal when it adopted new regulations preventing foreign states from taking ownership of the press.
Blavatnik is a dual citizen of the U.S. and the U.K. He was born in Ukraine and raised north of Moscow, before he immigrated to the U.S. in 1978. He studied computer science at Columbia University, and later earned an M.B.A. from Harvard. He started his New York-based investment company, Access Industries, in 1986.
Blavatnik’s fortune can be traced back to the chaotic post-Soviet days, when he made a series of shrewd investments through partnerships with various Russian moguls, including Viktor Vekselberg (net worth $9 billion) and Mikhail Fridman (net worth $14.9 billion).
The billions he earned through privatized factories and oilfields was then used the proceeds to invest in companies and buy assets in the West. His most attention-grabbing acquisition was Warner Music, which he bought for $3.3 billion at the height of the industry’s turmoil in 2011. He took the company public on the Nasdaq in June 2020 at quadruple the value.
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