Pace is upped in Telegraph bid war

A SUCCESSFUL bid for media company Hollinger International may have to top £900m, it was reported today. Bidding for the titles is said to have hotted up after presentations from Telegraph newspapers executives.

The process is being handled by Lazard, led by Bruce Wasserstein - nicknamed Bid 'Em Up Bruce for his ability to extract the best price from company sales. The Times today said that private equity house Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Israeli businessman Haim Saban have entered the bidding.

The field vying for assets that include the Telegraph newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post was told last week by the company that final bids should be submitted by early May, and a winner should be announced later the same month. The strongest potential buyers appear to be the Daily Mail and General Trust, owner of Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Evening Standard and This is Money, and the Barclay brothers, whose earlier attempt to buy Hollinger was blocked by a Delaware court last month.

Despite giving his blessing to the auction process, former Hollinger chief executive Lord Black has added another twist to his tortuous legal wrangle with Hollinger International by launching a lawsuit in Chicago accusing the company of preventing him from exercising 2.1 million share options.

Hollinger has agreed to leave the quarterly dividend unchanged at five cents.