Britain’s Daily Telegraph enters a new era this week, with new owners and a new management structure.
Thirteen years after chief executive Mathias Döpfner famously took Axel Springer “online first” – selling off the Hamburg broadsheet on which the business had been launched – his purchase of the UK’s Telegraph Media Group has been confirmed following approval from Austrian and Irish regulators.
At the same time, and “to help lead the transformation”, Carolin Hulshoff Pol (pictured) has been named as chief executive, with Patrick Wehrmann – who has worked for the German publisher for 25 years – moving over as chief financial officer.
Hulshoff Pol’s background includes chief executive of national daily Welt, and before that of Springer’s tabloid Bild, the country’s largest news media brand.
The deal ends three years of uncertainty for the Telegraph and its sister Sunday Telegraph, with Springer promising to preserve its editorial independence and British identity.
Editor-in-chief Chris Evans is a survivor from a pre-Springer era, having led a newsroom revolt against plans by Lloyds Bank to sell the paper to UAE-backed Redbird IMI. Now he’s talking of “exciting times” with an owner with which “we have much in common”.
Döpfner, who presided over the 2013 sale of Hamburger Abendblatt and other regional titles to Funke Mediengrupp, led the group to an “online first” future in 2006. He has recalled its foundation in recent announcements: “Today is a day we have worked towards for a long time, and one we will always remember. Axel Springer was founded in 1946 under a British press licence, and The Telegraph was our ‘North Star’.”
Now there are plans to accelerate TMG’s digital transformation, “leverage AI to support innovation and growth, continue to develop its journalistic excellence, and expand into the US market”.
Axel Springer owns newspapers in more than 40 countries, and recently took its Politico brand into Australia.
Peter Coleman