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This profile considers the media interests of the Barclay
family, in particular its acquisition of Hollinger's UK
titles.
This page covers -
introduction
In 2004 David & Frederick Barclay acquired Hollinger's
UK newspaper, online and magazine interests by paying
£665 million after those assets were put up for
sale by Hollinger's bankers following melt-down of Conrad
Black's media empire.
The brothers already controlled several UK newspapers
and magazines but were best known as "secretive"
tax exiles and for interests that included the Ritz hotel
and major mail-order operations.
Earlier that year Black had sought to sell his controlling
stake in Hollinger to the Barclays. As noted elsewhere
on this site he had built a group that at one stage owned
around 60% of the daily newspapers in Canada (with around
37% of the daily circulation), over 400 titles in the
US, major papers in the UK and Israel and a handful of
magazines.
The Barclays announced that they had an "irrevocable"
agreement to buy Ravelston's 78% stake in Hollinger Inc
and 73% voting stake in Hollinger International for £260
million, preempting action by the latter's board. That
sale was characterised by some observers as an apparent
significant discount on Hollinger's worth, eg what shareholders
might expect to receive if the various assets were unbundled
and sold.
It was suggested that the brothers, consistent with a
reputation for secrecy and controlling-shareholder provisions
in the US companies code, would seek to buy out other
shareholders (presumably funded by offloading non-UK assets
such as the US titles and the Jerusalem Post).
The agreement, however, proved not to be irrevocable -
complicated by litigation in the US and UK - and in early
March 2004 Hollinger International moved to auction off
its assets through the Lazard investment bank.
The Barclays then made the winning bid for Hollinger's
UK titles (inc the Daily Telegraph and Spectator)
in July 2004. UK satirical magazine Private Eye
sniped that
Allowing
the Barclay twins to control the Telegraph
titles is like hiring a militant temperance campaigner
to run an off-licence, since they are fiercely hostile
to the main function of journalism - disclosure
the brothers
The Barclays were born the sons of a travelling salesman
in Hammersmith. After leaving school they worked as painters
and decorators before trading and redeveloping property
(holdings include London's Ritz hotel and the
Hotel Mirabeau in Monte Carlo) during the 1950s
and 1960s. After moving to the tax haven of Jersey they
acquired the remnants of the Ellerman group (disposing
of its shipping and brewery interests) and expanded into
print.
Acquisition of Scottish newspapers such as The Scotsman
and Edinburgh Evening News from Thomson
in 1995 was initially successful, attributable to what
has been described as ruthless cost-cutting and leadership
by former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil.
Moves to acquire Scottish Media Group (SMG)
were stymied - its print holdings went to Gannett
for £216 million after SMG highlighted competition concerns.
Activity south of the border - notably purchase of the
European (launched by Robert Maxwell,
acquired from Mirror in 1992
but closed in 1998) and Sunday Business, later
rebadged as The Business - was less successful.
In 2000 a £75 million offer to United News &
Media (UNM) for the Express
titles and Daily Star was rejected in favour
of Richard Desmond.
In 2002 the Barclays paid for £750 million for the
Littlewoods mail order operations of the Moores family,
which had earlier disposed of its football pools interests.
In 2003 they bought the mail order arm of the GUS group
for £730 million. GUS - formerly Great Universal
Stores under control by the Wolfson family - dates from
1900. It is best known for its Burberry, Argos and Lewis
retail operations, along with Experion data services.
The Barclay purchase encompassed mail order and logistics
operations in the UK, Eire and Sweden, with sales in 2003
of £1.67 billion and operating profit of £35
million.
the Scotsman
In December 2005 the Barclays sold The Scotsman,
Edinburgh Evening News and Scotland on Sunday
to Johnston for £160
million.
Edinburgh-based daily The Scotsman (a tabloid
from 2004) was founded in 1817 as a liberal weekly by
customs official Charles Maclaren (1782-1866) and lawyer
William Ritchie (1781-1831). On establishment it made
the usual commitments to "impartiality, firmness
and independence", criticising the "unblushing
subservience" of its competitors.
Maclaren edited the paper from 1820 to 1845, edited the
sixth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica
in 1823, was the author of several works on geology, corresponded
with Charles Darwin and encouraged railway development.
In 1825 for example he wrote that
there
is nothing very extravagant in expecting to see the
present extreme rate of travelling (ten miles per hour)
doubled. We shall then be carried at a rate of 400 miles
per day ... From Calais to Paris, or Constantinople
for instance, would be a journey of five days; and the
tour of Europe might be accomplished in less time than
our grandfathers took to travel to London and back again.
The paper metamorphosed from an "incendiary"
critic of Edinburgh corruption to a voice of the Scottish
establishment. It was relaunched as The Daily Scotsman
in 1855 (the 'daily' was dropped in 1865), following abolition
of advertisement duty and newspaper stamp tax in Scotland,
and extended its influence through reduced prices, an
emphasis on quality reporting and an aggressive approach
to distribution (notably through exclusive deals with
railway operators). By the end of the century it formed
the centrepiece of a group that included the Edinburgh
Evening Dispatch and the Weekly Scotsman.
During the 1926 General Strike The Scotsman was
the only national UK title to continue publishing, aided
by government assistance that included gestures such as
free airfreight for a token number of copies to London.
The Scotsman was acquired by Roy Thomson
in 1953 for £750,000, being sold (with associated titles)
to the Barclays in 1995.
Its Sunday edition appears as Scotland on Sunday.
studies
There has been no major biography of the Barclays,
often characterised as "secretive" and "enigmatic".
Andrew Neil's Full Disclosure (London: Macmillan
1996) unfortunately doesn't extend to his adventures with
the brothers, instead assailing former employer Rupert
Murdoch.
Perspectives on the rise and fall of Hollinger are provided
by Robert Picard's lucid The Economics & Financing
of Media Companies (New York: Fordham Uni Press 2002)
and The Rise & Fall of Communication Empires
(PDF)
and the works cited in
the profile on Conrad Black.
 next
page (Barclay landmarks)
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