By Paul Sandle and Sarah Young
LONDON (Reuters) -The Barclays regained control of the Telegraph on Monday after Abu Dhabi helped repay its 1.2 billion pound ($1.5 billion) debt to Lloyds Bank, despite Britain blocking a transfer to an Emirates-backed group on concerns about press freedom.
A battle to own the right-leaning newspaper and the Spectator political magazine was launched earlier this year when Lloyds Bank seized control of the titles following a long running dispute over the debt.
Determined to regain control of two titles read closely by the governing Conservative Party, the Barclays teamed up with Abu Dhabi-backed RedBird IMI to pay off the debt, and were given a deadline of Monday to hand over the money before a court hearing would enable the auction to proceed.
Under the plan, RedBird IMI was due to quickly gain control through a debt-for-equity swap.
However the British government threw that into doubt last week when it officially intervened to block the transfer of the assets to RedBird IMI until it had investigated whether any takeover would have an impact on freedom of expression under the new owner.
Lloyds confirmed in a statement that it had received the funds.
“We are always keen to work constructively with customers who get into difficulty with their repayments to reach an amicable solution,” a spokesperson said. “We’d like to thank all parties for their role in reaching this point.”
A spokesperson for RedBird IMI declined to comment.
RedBird IMI is led by former CNN executive Jeff Zucker and is backed by Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The mooted sale of the Telegraph and Spectator has attracted interest from a wide range of buyers, including Daily Mail owner DMGT, Belgium publisher Mediahuis, and hedge fund founder Paul Marshall and Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
($1 = 0.7900 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle and Sarah Young; Editing by Kate Holton)