The GB News investor Sir Paul Marshall is stepping down from the board of the broadcaster after three years, it was announced on Friday.
Marshall is expected to be a frontrunner in the race to buy the Telegraph when the auction process reopens, after the government in effect scuppered its planned sale of the newspaper to a United Arab Emirates-backed consortium, RedBird IMI.
The Barclay brothers ceded control of the Telegraph titles to Lloyds bank last year after failing to repay £1.16bn of debts. In November it emerged that RedBird IMI had spent £600m buying debt secured on the media business from Lloyds, which carried with it the right to ownership, before that aim was thwarted by the UK government.
Now the investment group is preparing to formally withdraw its bid, after months of talks with the UK government, the Financial Times reported. The withdrawal of the offer would kick off an auction process, but people close to the deal said RedBird was prepared to remain as an owner if bids were lower than the £600m it had already spent.
The group was also open to bringing in investors to replace Abu Dhabi’s IMI and had held “informal talks” with potential partners, including Lord Rothermere’s DMGT which owns the Daily Mail, sources suggested.
In a statement on Friday, Marshall, a hedge fund owner who has a 41% stake in GB News, said he would remain “very engaged” as the co-lead investor in the broadcaster and would remain involved with GB News’s owner, All Perspectives Ltd, but was stepping down from the board to focus on other interests.
He said: “I joined as a director for the startup phase but now GB News is on a secure growth trajectory, I want to focus on my other business and philanthropic interests.”
The financier is one of two investors in GB News alongside Legatum, the Dubai-based investment company founded by the New Zealand billionaire Christopher Chandler. He is also the founder and publisher of the comment-based current affairs media outlet UnHerd.
Marshall has been replaced on the board of All Perspectives Ltd by the businessman and politician Theodore Agnew, a former Treasury and Cabinet Office minister who was recently appointed as chair of UnHerd Ventures. Marshall said Agnew was “an exceptional business leader who brings enormous skills and strengths for the next stage of the company’s development”.
Marshall’s decision to step down prompted speculation that the would-be media baron hopes to smooth the path towards ownership of the Telegraph. Steven Barnett, a professor of communications at the University of Westminster, said Marshall should now be considered favourite to take over the titles.
“On plurality grounds, would concerns be raised about his proposed ownership of the Telegraph titles alongside his influence over GB News? There might still be concerns, but stepping down from the board would likely reduce them,” Barnett said.
The media analyst Alex DeGroote said that while Marshall held on to his shares and the CEO, Angelos Frangopoulos, remained in position, Friday’s move was likely to have little impact on the editorial direction of the broadcaster. “I suspect this may be a little bit of rearranging the chairs on deck for the board,” he said.
When the auction reopens, competitors are likely to include the Murdoch-owned News Corp, DMGT – which as well as the Mail owns the Metro, i and New Scientist titles – and David Montgomery, the boss of the regional newspaper group National World. The German publisher Axel Springer and the ex-Telegraph editor, now Washington Post publisher, William Lewis, are thought to be no longer in the running, according to the Press Gazette.
