Hedge fund manager Paul Marshall has vowed to fix “underinvestment” in The Spectator magazine as his company Old Queen Street Ventures Limited completed its acquisition of the nearly 200-year-old title.
The £100m purchase also sees Old Queen Street Ventures (trading as OQS Media) take over The Spectator’s sister title, art magazine Apollo.
OQS Media already publishes online magazine Unherd and owns the Old Queen Street Cafe, the Unherd Club and publishing technology startup Coeditor Limited. Marshall is separately known for investing in GB News.
The company said The Spectator and Unherd “will remain fully separate titles, with independent editorial and governance structures”, although Unherd editor-in-chief and OQS chief executive Freddie Sayers will also become publisher of The Spectator and Apollo.
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New Spectator management to ‘prioritise investment’
OQS said the Spectator acquisition will see the magazine provided “with access to the investment, expertise and facilities to grow as part of the wider OQS Media portfolio” and that the new management “will prioritise investing in journalism, talent and the latest technology, with the aim of building a strong future for The Spectator and supporting it to reach new audiences.
“A particular focus will be given to expanding the magazine’s reach in the Anglosphere and in North America, as well as using OQS Media’s digital expertise to enhance the experience of Spectator readers by innovating across technology, video and audio.” The Spectator currently has country-specific editions in the US and Australia.
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Marshall said: “As a long-term Spectator reader, I am delighted it is joining the OQS stable. The plan is for OQS to make good previous underinvestment in one of the world’s great titles.
“I am confident that OQS will be a fine custodian, building on The Spectator’s values and successful track record.”
The Spectator makes money, having returned a profit and grown revenue every year since 2013.
Sayers said OQS ownership of The Spectator "will not only add energy, global ambition, and digital innovation, it will invest in journalism and be committed to the highest standards, with a dedication to the core principles which underpin a free press: accurate presentation of news and free expression of opinion".
He added: "The Spectator is an iconic British media brand and one of the great publications of the English language, representing a wit, intelligence and playful articulation of important principles that has no equal.
“It is a very different publication to Unherd, with its own politics, atmosphere and interests, and we are committed to helping both publications develop independently — alongside Apollo, the international art magazine that will also join the group."
Fraser Nelson and Andrew Neil comment on Spectator sale to Paul Marshall
Spectator editor Fraser Nelson congratulated Marshall on the acquisition on Twitter/X, and wrote in an article on the magazine's website that, "had The Spectator been sold to the Emirati government, as was on the cards, we would have faced obvious questions about our operational and editorial independence.
"That will be protected under Sir Paul, who is buying The Spectator because he admires what we have achieved, believes in the magazine’s values and, most importantly, knows that we can go further with more investment.
"The price we’ve been sold for, £100 million, speaks to that belief in our potential."
Nelson paid tribute to The Spectator's outgoing chairman Andrew Neil, who he said "handled the [outgoing proprietor] Barclay family and served as a firewall, running the business side while protecting the editor’s freedom". He also thanked the Barclays for taking a "laissez-faire approach" that allowed the magazine to behave "like a start-up".
Neil himself was less complimentary to the magazine's former proprietors, writing on X that the sale had only occurred in the first place "because our then proprietors had used us as collateral for massive debts unrelated to us (without ever telling us). They then failed to pay these debts".
He also noted that he did not know the exact value of the "around £100m" paid for The Spectator because, "in a fit of pique after we stopped Redbird’s Arab-financed takeover, some of us were excluded from the sales process now coming to an end".
The first auction for Telegraph Media Group including The Spectator was won by Redbird IMI, an Emirati-backed investment vehicle which was forced to abandon the acquisition when the Conservative government brought in new rules forbidding foreign state ownership of major UK news titles. Those rules were themselves adopted in part at the urging of journalists at The Spectator and Telegraph.
Neil signed off his two-decade tenure chairing the company by writing: "No doubt the new proprietor will bring assets to the table, perhaps even bigger budgets. However you can have all the resources in the world but if you don’t understand what really makes The Spectator tick then they will be as naught. Your new bosses need to look and learn from you...
"I cannot tell if the new owners will have the same reverence for editorial independence since they have not shared their thinking. Redbird didn’t care about who they sold us to and had no interest in demanding editorial safeguards. They just wanted to get shot of us for the highest price."
[Read more: Andrew Neil says GB News can never be profitable on current path]
Marshall recently stepped down stepped down from a director position at GB News owner All Perspectives Ltd ahead of the second round auction for The Spectator's sister newspapers, The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, for which Marshall has also been bidding. Marshall is one of the major investors in GB News alongside investment firm Legatum.
A spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said that "given the nature of the Spectator publication, this transaction does not fall within scope of the Culture Secretary’s powers to examine media mergers in the public interest under the Enterprise Act.
"More broadly, it is essential that the availability of a wide range of accurate and high-quality news and perspectives can be protected, and that the regime we have in place is equipped to keep up with changes and development in our media landscape. The Culture Secretary is now considering recommendations previously put forward by the independent regulator Ofcom on the function of the current regime."
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