The family which relinquished control of The Daily Telegraph last year is to hire a trio of banks to oversee a review of ownership options for Very Group, their online shopping empire.
Sky News has learnt that the board of Very Group – now chaired by Nadhim Zahawi, the former chancellor – is lining up Barclays, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley to handle a strategic review that could see the Barclay family ending its lengthy involvement with the business.
The investment banks, whose appointments are likely to be confirmed within days, will kickstart a full or partial auction of Very Group, which has nearly 4.5 million customers.
A refinancing of the business, which counts the global investment giant Carlyle and Abu Dhabi-based IMI among its lenders, is also a possibility, according to insiders.
They added, though, that a sale was more likely, with bidders expected to be courted on the basis of Very’s technology-driven financial services arm as well as the core retail offering which sells everything from electrical goods to fashion.
Retail industry insiders speculated the business was likely to be valued in the region of £2.5bn.
Some of those sources expect Carlyle to ultimately emerge in control of the business, having agreed earlier this year to extend the maturity date for a tranche of the online shopping group’s debt.
Very Group is one of the UK’s biggest online shopping businesses, owning the Very and Littlewoods brands and employing 3,700 people.
It boasts £2.15bn in annual sales, with more than £420m of that generated by its Very Finance arm.
Mr Zahawi was appointed as its chairman earlier this year, days after he announced he was standing down as the MP for Stratford-on-Avon at July’s general election.
He replaced Aidan Barclay, a senior member of the family which has owned the business for decades.
News of the strategic review comes as it emerged that the publisher of The New York Sun was on the verge of being granted exclusivity in the race to buy the Telegraph newspapers.
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Dovid Efune, whose interest in buying the titles was revealed by Sky News last month, has offered more than £550m for them.
Together with the £100m sale of The Spectator to Sir Paul Marshall, that would mean RedBird IMI making an unexpected profit on the £600m it paid to refinance part of the Barclay family’s debts to Lloyds Banking Group.
Another £600m was paid by IMI and secured against other family assets including part of Very Group’s debt pile.
The Barclays, who used to own London’s Ritz hotel, have already lost control of several of their corporate assets.
In February, Yodel Group, their parcel delivery business, narrowly averted insolvency when it was sold to a consortium backed by executives at Shift, a rival.
The parent company of ArrowXL, another delivery firm they own, had been forced into administration by HSBC, its principal lender, with ArrowXL now the subject of a sale process.
At various points in the last decade, the Telegraph proprietors have explored a sale of the online shopping business, having valued it at the time at over £3bn.
A Very Group spokesman declined to comment.