RedBird Capital withdrew its £500 million bid for the Telegraph Media Group on Friday, leaving the destiny of the key British writer unclear.
“RedBird has today withdrawn its bid for the Telegraph Media Group,” a consultant for private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners instructed NCS. “We remain fully confident that the Telegraph and its world-class team have a bright future ahead of them and will work hard to secure a solution which is in the best interests of employees and readers.”
RedBird’s resolution to not pursue The Telegraph throws a wrench within the tabloid’s bid to develop its enterprise within the United States, even as its rivals — together with the Daily Mail, the BBC and The Guardian — have expanded in North America over the previous few years.
The reversal comes months after RedBird introduced in May that it had reached an in-principle agreement to amass The Telegraph Media Group for roughly $657 million. At the time, that deal appeared to mark the top of the media firm’s two-year saga to seek out new possession.
Under the deal, RedBird was to turn into the only real controlling proprietor of The Telegraph, the right-leaning British newspaper based in 1855. The private equity firm was set to put money into The Telegraph’s digital operation in a bid to broaden the outlet’s foothold within the US and develop subscriptions general.
The Telegraph’s sale was lengthy stymied by the British authorities’s restrictions on international authorities investments in media possession, which capped international state-owned investments right into a writer at 15%.
RedBird, with the assistance of International Media Investments (IMI) — an Abu Dhabi-based funding firm owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling household — helped the Barclay household regain management of The Telegraph in December 2023, however the British authorities barred the switch of possession.
The May 2025 deal would have allowed IMI to retain a 15% funding, assembly that restrict. However, The Telegraph’s personal journalists have questioned RedBird’s ties to China. In August, a coalition of human rights and freedom of expression organisations raised comparable considerations in an open letter to Britain’s secretary of state for tradition, media and sport.
RedBird has denied the alleged ties to Beijing. IMI didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Now, with RedBird out of the image, the right-leaning media empire’s future returns to a state of uncertainty.
“Our immediate priority is to minimise disruption to the business and work with all stakeholders, including DCMS, towards a solution,” a spokesperson for Telegraph Media Group Holdings instructed NCS.