By: (AP) A London stockbroking firm said Monday it was bidding to buy publishing concern Telegraph Group Ltd., which is owned by the troubled media company Hollinger International Inc.
If the bid succeeds, Collins Stewart Ltd. stockbrokers said it would seek to immediately take the company public. The Telegraph Group publishes
The Daily Telegraph and
The Sunday Telegraph newspapers and
The Spectator magazine.
"I can confirm that the company has put in a bid for the Telegraph publishing group and plans to float it if the bid is successful," a spokeswoman for Collins Stewart said.
She refused comment on the value of the bid, which media reports estimated at around 400 million-500 million pounds ($696 million to $870 million).
The stockbroking company has put together a consortium of pension funds and other institutional investors to bid for the titles, which Hollinger International is considering selling.
Collins Stewart specializes in putting together consortia to buy companies with the intention of later issuing shares in them to the public. Among the companies it has bought are vacation chain Center Parks U.K. and utilities group Northumbrian Water.
Hollinger International, which has become caught up in a financial scandal, also owns the
Chicago Sun-Times and
The Jerusalem Post. It said it has retained the investment bank Lazard LLC to explore a sale of the company or one or more of its newspapers.
The company is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission after a prominent shareholder complained that Black and other senior executives received millions of dollars in payments that the shareholder says should have gone to the company.
Black has stepped down as CEO of Hollinger International as part of a management shakeup, but he remains its chairman and controlling shareholder.
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