Culture Secretary Steps in After Tory MPs Call for Telegraph Sale to Be Paused

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice in response to the proposed takeover of the group which owns the Daily Telegraph.

A woman reads a copy of The Daily Telegraph newspaper in London, on May 21, 2009. Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images

The culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, has stepped in amid concerns about the proposed sale of the Daily Telegraph and its sister titles to a venture partly financed by the vice president of the United Arab Emirates.

RedBird IMI—a joint venture with an investment fund owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, vice president of the UAE, and owner of Manchester City Football Club—has agreed to buy the Telegraph Media Group in a deal which would pay off a debt of around £1 billion which the Barclay family owes to Lloyds.