Express owner drops bid for Hollinger's publishing group Telegraph

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2004

LONDON (AFP) — British media and pornography baron Richard Desmond, owner of the newspaper Express, has withdrawn a bid for the Telegraph Group, according to a spokesman for his Northern and Shell company.

"We did not want to move forward. We were in the bidding process to buy a business not a trophy asset," said the spokesman.

Initially, analysts estimated the Telegraph Group, which includes the Daily and Sunday Telegraph as well as the weekly Spectator magazine, to be worth about 500 million pounds (748 million euros, 907 million dollars).

But analysts now believe that because the list of bidders has grown, the price has been pushed up to at least 600 million pounds.

Desmond, who last month sold more than 25 of his pornographic titles in...