The owner of The Daily Mail newspaper may be in talks to acquire rival, The Daily Telegraph, according to analysts at broker Liberum Capital Ltd., reports Bloomberg Quint. If negotiations are successful, the deal would combine two of U.K.’s most prominent right-wing and Brexit-backing newspapers.
Daily Mail & General Trust Plc have approximately $245 million of net cash on its balance sheet after the recent sale of energy-information business Genscape. This positions the company to pursue its stated preference for bolt-on acquisitions rather than shareholder returns.
However, The Daily Mail declined to comment.
In addition, analysts predict that the assets controlled by News Corp. and the Telegraph Media Group are likely to come up for sale given the age of their respective controlling influences (88-year-old Rupert Murdoch and the 84-year-old Barclay brothers).
News Corp. also declined to comment.
According to Liberum, “The Telegraph may fit more into the mold for DMGT than News Corp.’s The Sun, from a demographic standpoint, while also facing few regulatory obstacles from a circulation standpoint.”
The broker also said DMGT may have recently benefited from the U.K. government’s reported 100-million-pound spending on Brexit advertising, ahead of the Oct. 31 deadline.
