US billionaire Ken Griffin may provide financial backing to a consortium led by fellow hedge fund manager by Paul Marshall in a bid to take over the UK’s Telegraph Media Group, according to newspaper reports.
Marshall, co-founder of money manager Marshall Wace, is lining up backers and working with financial adviser Moelis & Co. as he prepares for the auction set to begin in coming weeks, the Telegraph reported Monday, without saying where it got the information. Spokespeople for both financiers declined to comment, the Financial Times noted in a related report.
Griffin — founder of hedge fund Citadel and market-maker Citadel Securities — would only invest in such an effort personally, not through his company, a person with knowledge of his thinking told Bloomberg.
The major Republican donor — whose fortune exceeds $36 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — could provide potent firepower in an auction already drawing a number of competing bidders. The media group publishes two of Britain’s best-known conservative titles, the Telegraph and the Spectator. In June, Lloyds Banking Group Plc seized control of the publications from the Barclay family, which had owned them since 2004.
Marshall, who owns television channel GB News, is preparing his offer with advice from Paul Zwillenberg, a former executive at Daily Mail & General Trust Plc, the FT reported, citing two people familiar with the situation.
