Jewish Chronicle plunged into bitter row as bidders circle
The Jewish Chronicle has been plunged into a bitter row as rival factions line up bids to take control of the newspaper ahead of a crunch meeting next week.
Earlier this month the London weekly announced it was seeking a creditors’ voluntary liquidation alongside the Jewish News, with which it had previously agreed to merge.
The Kessler Foundation — the charity that has owned the Jewish Chronicle since 1984 — last week said it had submitted a bid for the assets of both newspapers.
However, a consortium of buyers led by Theresa May’s former comms chief Robbie Gibb has now tabled a rival offer, sparking division at the newspaper.
Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard today resigned after 15 years at the helm and threw his weight behind the Gibb consortium, stating its offer was in the best interests of the paper, its creditors and the Jewish community.
“It has been reported that they will make our creditors whole and that they will look to retain many of our current team,” he said.
“Many of those creditors are the writers to whom I owe whatever success I have had as editor. The Kessler Foundation has made no such commitment.”
The consortium intends to retain Pollard as editor if its bid is successful — something Pollard said he was willing to discuss.
If the Kessler Foundation’s bid is successful, it will replace Pollard with Jewish News editor Richard Ferrer.
The Kessler Foundation may be well-placed to take control of the assets due to a £950,000 loan it paid to the company in June 2019 to help pay off the newspaper’s pension scheme and secure its future.
However, City PM understands that Gibb’s consortium has tabled a dramatic last-minute offer of roughly £2m ahead of a creditor’s meeting scheduled for Monday.
The group, whose bid was first reported by the Financial Times, includes high-profile figures from banking, media and politics.
Former Labour MP John Woodcock, Investec executive Robert Swerling and Kirkland and Ellis partner Jonathan Kandel are among the people to have stumped up money for the bid alongside unnamed Jewish philanthropists.
A spokesperson for the Kessler Foundation said there was “zero transparency” about who had funded the consortium’s bid.
In a statement the Gibb consortium said: “We are deeply disappointed with the Kessler Foundation’s conduct during this process, and consider it a cynical move to have put the paper into liquidation during the Jewish festival of Passover and over the bank holiday weekend, a move designed to rush through an outcome that maintains their control, but is clearly to the detriment of the paper and its creditors.”
City PM understands minority shareholders are also considering referring the Kessler Foundation to HMRC and the Charities Commission for alleged misconduct.
“There are matters that need clarification and investigation. That is all we are prepared to say at the moment,” a source close to the newspaper said.
It comes at a turbulent time for the Jewish Chronicle, which posted a £1.5m loss last year.
Alongside Jewish News, the newspaper is battling a squeeze on advertising revenue — compounded by the coronavirus crisis — as well as falling readership amid a decline in the London Jewish community.
One insider said the in-fighting between bidders was against the interests of the Jewish community, describing the title as “part of the glue that holds us all together”.
It is not clear how many jobs either bidder would be able to save after all staff were told they would be made redundant.
“We were devastated to learn on the eve of Passover that the Jewish Chronicle would be put into liquidation,” the Jewish Chronicle NUJ chapel said.
“This was made worse when we saw a war of words over the paper’s future and our livelihoods break out in another newspaper.”
The NUJ called for urgent clarification from both the Kessler Foundation and the consortium on the details of their bids and their plans for the newspaper’s future.