Irish billionaire Tony O“Reilly, chairman of crystal company Waterford Wedgwood, has said he is one of the final three bidders for the Belfast Telegraph – joining the Guardian Media Group and Gannett…
Irish billionaire Tony O“Reilly, chairman of crystal company Waterford Wedgwood, has said he is one of the final three bidders for the Belfast Telegraph – joining the Guardian Media Group and Gannett of the US in what analysts believe could be a UK 250 million auction for Ulster“s largest newspaper. Independent News & Media, the media firm he chairs, hopes to learn within the next three weeks whether it has claimed the main spoil from last year“s UK 1.3 billion merger of Trinity and Mirror Group. O“Reilly has lined up a board of political and business figures to back his bid – in a move to allay concerns that Dublin-based ownership of the Belfast Telegraph may affect its political character. His signings include Lord Rogan, chairman of the Ulster Unionist Party, Berna McIvor, election agent for John Hume, the SDLP leader, and Lady Quigley, whose husband, Sir George Quigley, is chairman of Ulster Bank. O“Reilly, who was at the Ambiente ceramics trade fair in Frankfurt recently, in his role as chairman of Waterford Wedgwood, said that he believes that the proposed management buyout of the Belfast Telegraph is out of the running. “We“re down to the last three,” he said. “It looks as though it will be Gannett, the Guardian and ourselves. So it will be a tough battle.” He dismissed concern that adding the Belfast Telegraph to his Dublin-based stable of newspapers may raise issues of competition. “There is not one competition authority for the island of Ireland. There is one in London and there is one in Dublin, said O“Reilly. “And the one in Dublin has no say over what goes on in Northern Ireland.” Gannett acquired the UK“s Newsquest regional newspaper group last year. Trinity Mirror has been given until September to sell the Belfast Telegraph as a condition of its merger being approved. The paper is understood to have generated UK 20 million profit on UK 60 million of sales in 1998.