After years harbouring ambitions to control the UK’s remaining broadsheet, Axel Springer is back in the market, supporting entrepreneur Dovid Efune’s bid for the Daily Telegraph.

Springer – which was a bidder as early as October 2023 – has quietly joined Efune’s consortium, backing a GBP£500 million (A$956 million) bid.

The renewed activity follows speculation that attempts by Daily Mail owner DMGT might be knocked back by UK regulators.

The German media group – best known for tabloid Bild and heavier Die Welt, but also now owner of Politico and Business Insider – has gone through an evolution of its own, closing famed mastheads and print sites. An attempt to buy the UK Financial Times in 2015 was topped by Japan’s Nikkei.

Now it is quietly “confirming participation” in the Telegraph deal after writing to RedBird IMI setting out the terms of a proposal said to be superior to that agreed with the Daily Mail publisher. Private equity firm RedBird had tried earlier to buy the conservative broadsheet with the support of Abu Dhabi-owned IMI.

The DMGT owns the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Metro and The i Paper.

A former chief executive and editor-in-chief of the Algemeiner Journal, Efune has owned the New York Sun since November 2021, turning the print newspaper to a fully-digital publication the following year.

Others interested in the Telegraph are reported to include a consortium headed by GB News co-owner Sir Paul Marshall, former Mirror Newspapers chief David Montgomery, Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský and former editor Sir William Lewis.