Evgeny Lebedev, the Russian oligarch’s son who owns the Evening Standard and the Independent website, made an offer to buy the Daily Telegraph from the Barclay brothers earlier this year.
The offer was rebuffed and the Telegraph is not thought to be up for sale despite speculation after a strategic review of the business by Deloitte earlier this year, following which a string of senior journalists were fired. A spokesman for Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay said: “There are no plans to sell Telegraph Media Group or any part of it and there never have been.”