The Spectator magazine has been sold to hedge fund tycoon and GB News’s biggest shareholder Sir Paul Marshall for £100m.

The title is one of the UK’s most influential political magazines and counts former prime minister Boris Johnson and ex-chancellor Nigel Lawson as past editors.

The transaction decouples it from the search to find new owners for the right-leaning Telegraph newspapers.

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It is possible Sir Paul could still buy the Daily and Sunday Telegraph papers.

The fate of the media assets has been thrown into question by the unravelling of a deal that would have seen RedBird IMI, a vehicle backed by Abu Dhabi state funding, take control of them.

The takeover collapsed after the government intervened to block ownership of national newspapers by funds emanating from overseas governments.

The price tag

The £100m price tag will be viewed positively by sellers RedBird IMI, which paid £600m for the magazine and Telegraph titles. Current editor Fraser Nelson said the sums “speaks to that belief in our potential”.

Broadcaster and former Spectator editor Andrew Neil announced he was stepping down as chairman of the magazine.

“At a time when most ‘legacy’ publications are struggling to retain anything like their pre-digital worth, this is an unprecedented increase in value,” he said.

In a post on X that was critical of the sales process, he said: “It is sad, even unfair, that nobody responsible for this success – that is, everybody at 22 Old Queen Street [The Spectator offices] – will share in the upside.”

Aged 106 years old, The Spectator is said to be the world’s oldest magazine.

Sir Paul’s Old Queen Street Ventures Limited (OQS) also owns the website Unherd.