Daily Mail owner could take long-term hit after being gazumped at the 11th hour by Germany’s Axel Springer
T
he day after Lord Rothermere was gazumped in his pursuit of the Telegraph by Axel Springer’s £575m knockout offer, the Daily Mail owner was pictured beaming at Rupert Murdoch’s 95th birthday party in New York.
As guests at the star-studded black tie celebration at The Grill in Manhattan listened to Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman sing numbers such as Fly Me to the Moon, the 58-year-old media mogul may have been wondering how his almost three-decade dream to unite the titles within one right-leaning stable had fallen at the final hurdle.
Rothermere, who took over running the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) group in 1998 at the age of 30 after the death of his father, first looked at acquiring the Telegraph in 2004, when the Barclay family prevailed with a then eye-watering £665m takeover.
