Battle for Telegraph hots up

DAILY Mail and General Trust, publisher of the Daily Mail, yesterday joined the auction for Hollinger International's Telegraph newspapers.

DMGT had previously shown its interest, but only emerged as an official bidder late in the afternoon when it put in an indicative offer to Hollinger International's investment bankers Lazards.

Earlier in the day, broking firm Collins Stewart put in a bid. It plans to float the Telegraph if it wins. Daily Express owner Richard Desmond made an offer of around £500m on Wednesday. Private equity firms Apax and Candover are also tipped as bidders.

The bids came rolling in yesterday, just as journalists on the Daily and Sunday Telegraph voted in favour of taking strike action over pay.

This is just the first round of bidding. It will be some time before the list of interested parties is whittled down. Before anyone makes a firm offer, they will want assurances that Hollinger International actually has the right to sell the newspapers.

Lord Conrad Black, who controls its parent firm Hollinger Inc, has already agreed a deal to sell his controlling stake in Hollinger International to the Barclay brothers. The dispute goes to court next week, but is unlikely to be sorted out until the middle of March.

The National Union of Journalists said it looks forward to a new management team. It said: 'We deplore the record of the Hollinger management which has let the Telegraph down so badly in recent years.'