Mark Kleinman: Why Barclays’ £1bn Telegraph bid won’t be the last word, Alison Rose’s next move and why no one wants to be chair of the BBC
The must-read column from the man in the know, City Editor at Sky Mark Kleinman
Barclays’s £1bn Telegraph bid not the last word
Hold the front page: the Barclay family’s effort to lodge a knockout bid for The Daily Telegraph was timed like the arrival of a blockbuster newspaper story minutes before the final edition, throwing carefully laid plans into chaos.
The timing will have been deliberate. Submitted a matter of hours before the most eagerly awaited British media auction in years was due to get underway, it was impossible for Lloyds Banking Group, the Barclays’ principal creditor, to ignore.
It was the latest in a string of proposals submitted in the months since Lloyds seized control of the Telegraph titles by calling in receivers over the Barclays’ unpaid debts. Consider this, though: the previous offer, valued at £725m, had been tabled – and rejected – only a couple of weeks earlier. The sudden increase to £1bn raises all sorts of questions about why the family is quite so motivated to regain control of the Telegraph.
Under the able leadership of Nick Hugh, Telegraph Media Group’s chief executive, the papers are sustainably profitable, and media analysts believe there is scope for significant earnings growth over the next few years.
Nevertheless, the valuation range cited by most industry watchers has settled somewhere between £400m and £700m since it became apparent that the papers were being put up for sale.
The Barclays’ offer lies well above that bracket, and that isn’t the only enigmatic fact about their tussle to regain control. Nothing new there, in that their reclusiveness as owners of a business whose mission is transparency was a hallmark of their Telegraph involvement.
The source of their funding remains unclear. Well-placed people say Abu Dhabi sovereign investors including Sheikh Mansour, the ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club, have been in talks about financing a deal to buy back the Lloyds debt, but the terms of that would surely need to be usurious to lure new lenders.
Then there’s another head-scratcher: how would a deal be structured to ensure the Barclays would control the Telegraph assets, and that a Gulf state’s stake would remain at a politically acceptable level in economic and voting terms? All these questions have left rival bidders undeterred.
I understand Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail proprietor, has engaged Centerview Partners to advise on his prospective offer. Others, including Sir Paul Marshall, Axel Springer and Sir William Lewis, will undoubtedly be involved in an auction that will kick off within days.
There will be plenty more print runs before the future of one of Britain’s most influential newspapers is finally settled.
Former Natwest CEO Rose may blossom in US after untimely exit
Some of Britain’s former bank bosses have suddenly become significantly poorer – and it’s not because of the cost of living crisis.
Fresh from the announcement that Jes Staley, the accident-prone ex-Barclays chief executive, has been fined £1.8m and will forfeit stock awards worth almost £18m over his misrepresentation of his relationship with the disgraced paedophile, the latest to experience first-hand the reality of post-crisis malus
and clawback rules will be Dame Alison Rose.
Natwest Group is yet to respond to my report last weekend that it is racing to finalise her controversial payoff ahead of its third-quarter results at the end of next week, but it makes sense for Sir Howard Davies to seek to draw a line under the debanking scandal as swiftly as possible.
People close to the process say the board is not minded to be sympathetic to a CEO it lauded just hours before her ignominious July departure.
Dame Alison’s roughly-£5.5m unvested share awards are expected to be cancelled, she will forego any discretionary pay award for 2023, and I suspect that the remainder of her £2.4m fixed pay (comprising salary, pension contribution and role-based share allowance) will also be axed.
If that sounds draconian, consider the constraints that the Natwest board is operating under. The government has already let it be known that it expects to be consulted on her severance package.
For ‘consulted’, read ‘given a veto’ – which is not unreasonable seeing as it remains the bank’s largest shareholder. Ministers cannot be seen to permit a multimillion pound payoff for a departure triggered by an egregious – and wholly avoidable – error.
Only Dame Alison and the BBC journalist who misreported the circumstances of Nigel Farage’s termination as a Coutts customer will ever know exactly what she said on the July evening which proved so controversial, but it has exacted a heavy toll upon her.
Given the nature of her misdemeanour, it is hard to envisage her landing another role in Britain which would require authorisation from financial services regulators. What I now hear from City sources is that she may contemplate a move to the US to rebuild her corporate life. Her track record suggests she deserves a chance to do that.
BBC Chair screentest lacks audience
Burdensome time commitments, meagre pay and unreasonable scrutiny: amid debate about the increasing unattractiveness of FTSE 100 chairmanships, it’s worth remembering that not only public company jobs fall into that bracket.
Spare a thought for Saxton Bampfylde, the headhunter leading the search for the next BBC chair. By all accounts, prospective candidates have been dropping like flies from the ‘race’ to succeed Richard Sharp: weekend reports said that Dame Sharon White, the outgoing John Lewis Partnership chair, and former Sky CEO Sir Jeremy Darroch had been approached but declined the opportunity to apply.
I understand that Philip Jansen, the departing BT Group CEO, is also in that camp, while Sir Peter Bazalgette, chair of the Creative Industries Council and former ITV chair, has ruled himself out, telling me: “It’s an incredibly important job, but it is very time-consuming and means you have to give up many of the things you currently do.”
Even Sir Damon Buffini, the current deputy chair and former Permira chief, has decided against throwing his hat into the ring.
Prestigious? Undoubtedly, but at this rate the acting chair, Dame Elan Closs Stephens, may be looking at a longer BBC screen test than anyone envisaged.