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Telegraph £150m dividend fuels sale speculation

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By Gillian West, Social media manager

October 1, 2016 | 2 min read

Telegraph Media Group’s parent company has heightened speculation that its owners Sir Frederick Barclay and his twin brother, Sir David, may be preparing the sale of the newspaper group by paying its owners a dividend of £150m.

In its annual accounts for the year to January 2016, Press Acquisitions, which is controlled by the brothers, revealed it had written down the value of its publishing titles by £149.4m.

In a filing made public yesterday it said: “The market for the Telegraph’s newspaper sales and readership continues to decline as audiences consumer more and more content online.” However, a spokesman for the Barclay family instead the paper was not for sale inciting there was “no plans to sell TMG or any part of it and there never have been.”

In August it was reported the brothers had knocked back two expressions of interest from potential buyers with Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the London Evening Standard, meeting with Aidan Barclay, son of Sir David and a director of Press Acquisitions to express his interest in buying the papers. Former Daily Express editor, Richard Addis, is also have believed to have created a consortium to look into buying the paper.

Press Acquisitions reports show the company swung to a loss of £131.3m for the financial year to January 3. The amount of loans also rose from £40m to £180m within the year. The company said it was reducing its reliance on print focusing on digital operations and other products as well as raising cover price by 20p.

According to a spokesman the £150m dividend was “non cash and an accounting entry after years of accumulation of the inter-company balance”.

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