Telegraph suitor unable to secure backing from Hudson Bay

The Telegraph’s new suitor has been unable to secure backing from Hudson Bay Capital to buy the newspaper for £550 million.
Dovid Efune, owner of The New York Sun, had been in discussions with Hudson Bay and others about financing a deal to buy The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.
Yet The Times understands that Hudson Bay is no longer involved in the negotiations, despite Efune entering advanced talks with the Abu Dhabi venture controlling the auction of the publications. Hudson Bay declined to comment.
• Who is Dovid Efune, the publisher with his eyes on the Telegraph?
Efune, who has been building his media career in New York, emerged as a frontrunner in the race to secure the Telegraph after politicians blocked a deal part-funded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates.
The sheikh was barred from investing by ministers who were concerned about a foreign power wielding influence over UK media outlets. The government introduced laws banning foreign governments from owning newspapers or news magazines after outcry from MPs and members of House of Lords.
Efune has been identified as a leading bidder in the auction for the Telegraph and has brought in advisers at the boutique investment bank LionTree to drum up interest in the deal. He has also been in discussions with Oaktree, an investment firm, and the family office of the hedge fund manager Michael Leffell about funding his bid.
Nadhim Zahawi, the former Conservative chancellor, and David Montgomery’s listed publisher National World, have been seeking to bid for the Telegraph. Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund founder, has purchased The Spectator for £100 million, in a separate transaction with the sheikh’s joint venture RedBird IMI.
Efune was born in Manchester in 1985 and has connections to Britain’s corporate world through his family on his mother’s side. Peter Kalms, his grandfather, was the finance director and deputy chairman of Dixons, the electronics chain founded and led by the Kalms family.
Efune became editor of the New York publication The Algemeiner in 2008, and expanded his interests in journalism by purchasing The New York Sun in 2021, a publication which now has about 30 correspondents, editors and critics. The title’s columnists include Larry Kudlow, a former chief economic adviser to Donald Trump when he was US president, and Lord Black of Crossharbour, the former owner of the Telegraph.