On 13 August 2025, in an open letter to Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, ARTICLE 19 and 10 other global freedom of expression and human rights organisations raised urgent concerns over the potential acquisition of the Telegraph Media Group by investment firm RedBird Capital, in light of ties to China.
We highlight that RedBird Capital’s ties to China, including through its chairman, John L Thornton, threaten media pluralism, transparency, and information integrity in the UK. Citing international, European, and national standards, we call on the UK to ensure media pluralism and diversity and protect information integrity from potential foreign media influence. Citing the UK’s 2002 Enterprise Act and 2024 Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, we call on the Secretary of State to use her powers to initiate an investigation on grounds of public interest and foreign influence, and in the meantime to place the merger on hold.
The open letter follows.
Rt Hon Lisa Nandy MP
Secretary of State
Department of Culture, Media and Sport
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear Madam Secretary of State,
We, the undersigned global freedom of expression and human rights organisations, write to you to express our concerns about the proposed acquisition of the Telegraph Media Group (TMG), the parent company of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, by American investment firm RedBird Capital Partners.
We share and support serious concerns raised by Members of Parliament (including Rt Hon Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP and 13 MPs and peers) and media freedom experts regarding the risk of Chinese influence through RedBird Capital. RedBird Capital’s ties to China, including through its chairman, John L Thornton, threaten media pluralism, transparency, and information integrity in the UK.
Based on our concerns (summarised below), we urge you to prevent this acquisition and initiate a robust investigation into potential foreign influence.
Our concerns about China influence
According to publicly available records, RedBird Capital maintains a regional office in Hong Kong, which is largely under Beijing’s jurisdiction. In its 2024 guidance on overseas business risk in Hong Kong, the UK Government highlighted concerns about the impact of the political environment on businesses operating in Hong Kong and acknowledged ‘that some businesses have faced pressure to take public positions on political developments’ regarding China’s stance towards Hong Kong and beyond.
Meanwhile, in recent six-monthly reports on the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has found that Beijing has betrayed its commitments under the Joint Declaration. Since 2022, the FCDO has also pointed to the systematic eroding of the rights to freedoms of expression, press, assembly, and others. In its June 2024 report, the FCDO highlighted the growing attempts to apply ever-increasingly repressive laws extra-territorially. Such findings point to the real potential of pressure over foreign businesses operating in Hong Kong, which extends to RedBird Capital, demanding heightened human rights due diligence.
RedBird Capital’s founder, Gerry Cardinale, spent several years with Goldman Sachs in the 1990s building the firm’s investments in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, while its Chairman John L. Thornton’s ‘solid Chinese connections’ are not historical or incidental, but ongoing. Thornton sits on the International Advisory Council of the China Investment Corporation, China’s largest sovereign wealth fund, and chaired the Silk Road Finance Corporation, both vehicles through which China has pursued financial influence. He has also been affiliated with the Confucius Institute, which the Henry Jackson Society and Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation identified in a 2022 report as a direct extension of the Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Department in the UK.
In 2023, at a talk on US-China Relations hosted by the University of Texas at Austin, Thornton relayed having previously told senior Chinese officials they were losing the global narrative war because China’s story was being told by people who are not Chinese. He advised them to insert themselves into English-language media channels where they could better shape international narratives. The terminology of ‘telling China’s story well’ is itself a central external propaganda directive, delivered first by Xi Jinping during the 2013 National Propaganda and Ideology Work Conference. The guidance that China should insert itself in English-language media to better shape international narratives from the Chairman of an investment entity now poised to acquire a major UK newspaper alone demands greater transparency and robust investigation.
Duty to investigate
We recall that under international, European and national standards, the UK government must ensure media pluralism and diversity.
The 2018 Council of Europe Recommendation on media pluralism and transparency of media ownership holds that States should develop comprehensive regulatory frameworks taking into account media ownership and control. This includes promoting ‘a regime of transparency of media ownership that ensures the public availability and accessibility of accurate, up-to-date data concerning direct and beneficial ownership of the media, as well as other interests that influence the strategic decision-making of the media in question or its editorial line’. Ensuring greater transparency and preventing foreign media influence carries a clear public interest.
Under the UK’s 2002 Enterprise Act, you may intervene in mergers when there is reasonable ground to suspect public interest consideration is concerned. You may issue a ‘public interest intervention notice’ to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and Office of Communications (OFCOM), which are obligated to initiate an investigation and issue a report including ‘advice and recommendations on any media public interest consideration’. Following which, you may issue an adverse public interest finding and take a number of actions, including prohibiting the merger.
We would also like to point out that your predecessor, Rt Hon Lucy Frazer MP, on 26 January 2024 issued a public interest intervention notice in relation to previous RedBird plans to acquire the Telegraph Media Group (TMG). In a March 2024 Parliamentary debate, she explained the issuance of the notice was to address ‘the need for accurate presentation of news and free expression in newspapers’. Following the subsequent investigation, OFCOM found that the merger ‘may be expected to operate against the public interest’. In particular, it found that International Media Investments (IMI), a major backer in the plan, ‘may have the incentive to influence TMG in a way that could potentially act against the public interest in the UK by influencing the accurate presentation of news and free expression of opinion in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph newspapers’. Such concerns have not been addressed in relation to the potential for Chinese influence over TMG.
The ‘Mergers involving newspaper enterprises and foreign powers’ provisions in the 2002 Enterprise Act and 2024 Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act likewise call for your intervention in such cases where newspaper mergers may result in foreign influence. As such, you can issue CMA a ‘foreign state intervention notice’ when there are reasonable grounds to suspect ‘arrangements are in progress’ to create a foreign state newspaper merger or when ‘a foreign power is able to control or influence the policy of the person carrying on the newspaper enterprise or is able to control or influence that policy to a greater extent’.
For these reasons, we urge you to prevent the acquisition from proceeding and to initiate an investigation.
We believe that there is reasonable ground to suspect the Telegraph acquisition by RedBird Capital raises both public interest and potential foreign media influence concerns and calls on you to issue relevant notices to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the Office of Communication (OFCOM). We further encourage your office to ensure CMA and OFCOM investigations guarantee independent consultation with experts in Chinese foreign information manipulation and influence operations, as well as experts in media pluralism, transparency, and freedom of expression.
Pending robust investigations, the planned merger should be placed on hold.
Sincerely,
ARTICLE 19
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation
Free Tibet
Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC)
Hong Kong Watch
Human Rights in China (HRIC)
Index on Censorship
International Tibet Network
Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
Safeguard Defenders