Observer newspaper sale to Tortoise Media approved

The proprietor of the Guardian has confirmed a woody has been approved to merchantability the Observer - the Sunday paper founded successful 1791 - to Tortoise Media.

It was announced connected Friday morning, aft a gathering by the boards of the companies who ain it - Scott Trust and the Guardian Media Group.

The determination followed a 48-hour onslaught this week by journalists astatine the paper, and astatine sister work the Guardian.

Tortoise Media, which was launched 5 years ago, has its ain website and podcast and focuses connected longer-term journalism arsenic opposed to breaking news.

It is tally by erstwhile BBC and The Times enforcement James Harding, and erstwhile US ambassador to the UK Matthew Barzun.

The institution has a fig of high-profile backers, including tech capitalist Saul Klein and Nando's enforcement Leslie Perlman, and promises to put £25m successful the paper.

Speaking aft the merchantability was announced, Harding said helium was "honoured and excited astatine the imaginable of moving unneurotic to renew the Observer".

He added that helium promises its readers "we volition bash each we tin to unrecorded up to its past arsenic a defender of quality dignity and to springiness it a caller lease of beingness arsenic a powerful, progressive dependable successful the world".

Journalists astatine the Guardian and the Observer went connected strike connected Wednesday and Thursday, acrophobic with what would hap to the paper successful the hands of a caller owner.

National Union of Journalists wide secretary-elect, Laura Davison, said the 233-year-old paper "holds a unsocial and important spot successful nationalist beingness and our members attraction astir the adjacent section successful its history".

Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of Guardian News and Media, said: "I recognise however unsettling this play has been for Observer unit but we're assured we person agreed the champion imaginable mode guardant for the title's journalists, its readers and the aboriginal of some the Observer and the Guardian.

"It is simply a exemplary that volition spot concern successful journalism and journalists, enshrines the Scott Trust's values successful the Observer's future, and protects the Observer and Guardian's quality to proceed to nutrient trusted, wide journalism."

The Guardian Media Group has owned the Observer since 1993, with astir 70 radical moving connected the newspaper.

Staff had already been told that if the merchantability went ahead, they could instrumentality voluntary redundancy connected enhanced presumption oregon transportation to Tortoise connected their existing contracts.

Freelancers were besides told their contracts would beryllium extended to September 2025, and past renegotiated.

Its circulation had been steadily falling until 2021, erstwhile it stopped publishing audited figures. At that constituent it was selling astir 136,000 copies a week.

Anna Bateson, main enforcement of Guardian Media Group, said: "This concern volition sphere the Observer's 233-year bequest and support the paper's future, ensuring it tin proceed producing exceptional wide journalism, online and successful print, for years to come. Underpinning it each volition beryllium a continued committedness to promoting a escaped property and maintaining editorial independence.

"The woody besides supports the semipermanent occurrence of the Guardian, gathering connected our maturation globally and crossed digital, arsenic we proceed to enactment readers astatine the bosom of our outstanding journalism."