Andrew Neil, The Spectator’s big beast, goes down swinging after £100m takeover by GB News tycoon
In Andrew Neil’s own telling, his parting shot as chairman of The Spectator was a “considered and muted” intervention.
The magazine’s new owner, the hedge fund entrepreneur Sir Paul Marshall, may have seen things differently as he contemplated the denouement of his £100m takeover of the world’s oldest current affairs magazine.
Mr Neil announced his resignation to The Spectator’s staff and then to his 1.2m followers on the platform formerly known as Twitter an hour after the tortuous sale was completed.
Considered and muted it may have been, but journalists were gripped as one of their troubled industry’s big beasts went down swinging against a man who has emerged as the most significant investor in British media in recent years.
Mr Neil warned Sir Paul, 65, that his wealth and readiness to spend it is no guarantee of success for the magazine.
“My greatest regret is that I have not been able to find you a new home guaranteed to nurture the unique chemistry of The Spectator, which makes it so special and successful,” said Mr Neil.
“You can have all the resources in the world but if you don’t understand what really makes The Spectator tick then they will be as naught.”
More pointedly still, he issued a plea for editorial independence to a man who has a passionately held set of political priorities and a reputation for a demanding approach to his investments.
Sir Paul, an evangelical Christian who once stood to become a Liberal Democrat MP, has tacked steadily to the Right over the years, flirting with figures and causes that have made him a media bogeyman for the Left.
“I regarded it as my prime responsibility for 20 years to ensure [editorial independence], protecting the editor not just from outside pressures, commercial or political, but even from proprietors,” said Mr Neil.
“I cannot tell if the new owners will have the same reverence for editorial independence since they have not shared their thinking.”
Mr Neil, 75, told of his “sadness”, but in truth he was never going to be part of The Spectator’s future under Sir Paul.
The pair have a turbulent history. Mr Neil clashed with Sir Paul during the broadcaster’s short-lived tenure as chairman of GB News, into which the financier has pumped tens of millions of pounds of his own money.
The veteran presenter helped to launch the broadcaster but resigned after just three months following disagreements over the channel’s future direction.
Subsequently, Sir Paul was allegedly turned away from The Spectator’s summer party – a key event for Westminster conservatives – despite being a near neighbour as owner of UnHerd, an online-only rival publication based a few doors down on Old Queen Street.
Now The Spectator, which is closing in on its 200th birthday in 2028, and UnHerd, founded in 2017, will both be owned by Sir Paul’s Old Queen Street (OQS) Ventures.
Freddie Sayers, chief executive of the vehicle, said both publications will continue with “independent editorial and governance structures”.
“They have their own distinct politics, interests, formats, audiences and atmospheres which we want to preserve and help to flourish,” he said, making no mention of The Spectator’s editor Fraser Nelson.
Sir Paul said: “As a long-term Spectator reader, I am delighted it is joining the Old Queen Street stable. The plan is for OQS to make good previous underinvestment in one of the world’s great titles.
“I am confident that OQS will be a fine custodian, building on the Spectator’s values and successful track record.”
For the seller, the Abu Dhabi-backed private equity fund RedBird IMI, the extraordinary sale price is a significant success, and one step out of a hole it dug for itself when it paid the Barclay family £600m for The Spectator and The Telegraph in December.
Its hopes of gaining control of the publications were dashed in spring by new legislation outlawing foreign state ownership, leaving it with a tall task to recover its outlay.
At £100m, the price it achieved for The Spectator is beyond even RedBird IMI’s own lofty book value of £90m, and more than double the £40m tag suggested by media analysts. The auction became a bidding war between Sir Paul and Rupert Murdoch, a reader who has long held ownership ambitions but seemingly could not bear to follow Sir Paul into nine figures for a business which turned over less than £21m last year for a pre-tax profit of just £2.6m. In fact, News Corp sources claimed in the aftermath the bid that their offer was only around £40m.
Sir Paul said he will prioritise investment in journalism, with a focus on expanding the magazine’s readership in North America and stepping up its investment in video and audio.
Like The Telegraph, The Spectator was starved of investment under Barclay ownership at a time of revolutionary digital change in publishing.
The sale of The Telegraph is ongoing, with a consortium spearheaded by Sir Paul still in the running in second round bidding alongside the local newspaper publisher National World and an unidentified group of US investors.
Others are circling the formal auction process. The advertising mogul Lord Saatchi tabled a £350m first round bid and was knocked out, but has signalled continuing interest. The former Cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi, a close ally of the Barclay family and IMI, Abu Dhabi’s investment vehicle, has also been seeking a deal.
For Sir Paul, a takeover of The Telegraph poses extra challenges compared with The Spectator. RedBird IMI will be seeking to recover its outlay, plus heavy spending on advisers.
However, with Ken Griffin, the US hedge fund billionaire, lined up to provide additional firepower, Sir Paul’s consortium seems well-placed to bid assertively should it wish.
Regulation may induce more anxiety for Sir Paul. As a co-owner of GB News, Sir Paul presents questions over media plurality that may interest Ofcom, the industry watchdog.
The upstart channel’s spotty record of regulatory investigations and failings is likely to come under scrutiny too, and ownership of a national title such as The Telegraph is subject to rules that a magazine such as The Spectator is not.
Mr Sayers appeared to foreshadow such questions in his comments on The Spectator deal, which he said would be dedicated to the “accurate presentation of news and free expression of opinion”. That language is at the heart of the rules that govern ownership of The Telegraph, and is irrelevant to The Spectator.
As if to underline the potential hurdles faced by Sir Paul’s consortium, the Government issued an unusual press advisory reminding everybody that while the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has no power over magazine ownership unless a foreign state is involved, she has quasi-judicial authority to defend the public interest when it comes to newspapers.
Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of RedBird IMI, celebrated the sale of The Spectator.
He said: “Our aim with this phase of the process has been to secure ownership from a viable buyer for The Spectator, as well as complete a transaction that makes strong economic sense on our end.
“We were committed to moving quickly and capitalising on the strength of the asset and the significant interest from an eager marketplace. We have accomplished all of that with OQS and expect to have the same success as we pursue a buyer for the Telegraph Media Group.”
Mr Zucker made no reference to his earlier attack on Sir Paul, made as RedBird IMI battled to save its deal. Then, he had dubbed him “unfit to own a newspaper”.