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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Mark Sweney

‘No one saw this coming’: will the surprise Telegraph winner change the paper’s direction?

A copy of the Daily Telegraph seen next to the home page of German media group Axel Springer on a laptop
Axel Springer’s Mathias Döpfner has pledged to make the Telegraph ‘the leading centre-right media outlet in the English-speaking world’. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

The day after Lord Rothermere was gazumped in his pursuit of the Telegraph by Axel Springer’s £575m knockout offer, the Daily Mail owner was pictured beaming at Rupert Murdoch’s 95th birthday party in New York.

As guests at the star-studded black tie celebration at The Grill in Manhattan listened to Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman sing numbers such as Fly Me to the Moon, the 58-year-old media mogul may have been wondering how his almost three-decade dream to unite the titles within one right-leaning stable had fallen at the final hurdle.

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