German media firm Axel Springer has agreed to buy the Telegraph Media Group in a £575m deal, the companies have announced.
The media company, which also owns Politico and Business Insider, is understood to have agreed the all-cash deal for the The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.
Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) had previously agreed a £500m deal to buy The Telegraph last year.
However, Abu Dhabi-backed joint venture RedBird IMI said it now plans to sell the business to the German company.
Axel Springer chief executive Mathias Döpfner said: “More than 20 years ago, we tried to acquire The Telegraph and did not succeed. Now our dream comes true.
“To be the owner of this institution of quality British journalism is a privilege and a duty.
“We want to grow The Telegraph, while preserving its distinctive character and legacy, to help it become the most read and intellectually inspiring centre-right media outlet in the English-speaking world.
“The Telegraph stands for freedom, personal responsibility, democratic values and a belief in open societies and market economies.”
The deal ends three years of uncertainty over the future ownership of the daily news brand. It marks a major expansion for Axel Springer, whose owners have been making efforts to grow in Europe and the US in recent years.
The company first made a bid to buy The Telegraph in 2004, but was beaten by a £665m offer by the Barclay brothers. Mr Döpfner, who has been CEO since 2002, had previously cast doubt on another attempt at buying the newspaper, citing an interest in digital-only media.
Based in Berlin, Axel Springer also owns Bild, Europe’s largest newspaper, and the daily newspaper Die Welt.
In 2015, the firm also looked to acquire the Financial Times, but was unsuccessful against a £844m bid from leading Japanese media group, Nikkei.
The Telegraph was first put up for sale in 2023 after the Barclay family lost control of the title over more than £1bn of unpaid debts to Lloyds Bank.
Later that year, joint venture RedBird IMI agreed a deal to take it over while allowing the Barclay family to repay its debt.
The joint venture is 75 per cent-owned by International Media Investments (IMI), which is based in the United Arab Emirates and primarily owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, US investment firm RedBird Capital Partners.
The RedBird IMI bid prompted backlash from politicians, who referred the deal to Ofcom to investigate potential breaches of media standards arising from the ownership.
In 2024, new laws were introduced by Downing Street to prevent foreign governments from owning British newspapers. This effectively halted the RedBird IMI takeover, and the company put the brand up for sale again in April 2024.
The following year, RedBird Capital Partners agreed in principle to buy The Telegraph for around £500m.
This deal would have seen IMI take a minority stake capped at 15 per cent, under plans proposed by then-culture secretary Lisa Nandy to loosen media ownership laws.
However, the agreement collapsed in November after RedBird dropped its bid to buy the newspaper group.
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