As he prepares to be knighted next month by King Charles III, former Murdoch lieutenant and one-time Prime Ministerial adviser William Lewis is once again at the heart of media intrigue — just how he seems to like it.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Lewis said he’s lined up funding for a takeover of his former employer Telegraph Media Group Ltd., in an auction he expects will kick off in the next couple of weeks. The 168-year-old title is on the block after Lloyds Banking Group Plc dramatically terminated directors from the Barclay family and put the business up for sale in June to address long-running unpaid debts.
Describing himself as a “recovering journalist,” 54-year-old Lewis started his career at the Mail on Sunday and the Financial Times, breaking news of Exxon’s merger with Mobil, before rising to editor-in-chief at the Daily Telegraph. He went on to manage Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers just as the phone-hacking scandal engulfed News Corp. Lewis then joined the ranks of the CEOs he used to interview by running Murdoch’s financial news service Dow Jones from 2014 to 2020.
Read the full story on Bloomberg here.