Telegraph owners Yodel owed 242m to HSBC

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A struggling delivery business controlled by the Barclay brothers, owners of the Daily Telegraph, owed £242m to HSBC at a time when the newspaper allegedly discouraged critical coverage of the bank.

Yodel, the UK’s second-largest parcel carrier, refinanced its debt with HSBC in December 2012. Peter Oborne, who resigned as the Telegraph’s chief political commentator this week, has said negative stories about the bank were discouraged from “the start of 2013 onwards”.

HSBC and Yodel declined to comment.

A spokesman for the Barclays brothers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Telegraph has said Mr Oborne’s claims are “full of inaccuracy”, although it has not specified what. In an editorial on Friday, the Telegraph defended its coverage of HSBC, saying that it was “proud to be the champion of British business and enterprise”.

Yodel has been a problematic investment for the Barclays, reporting heavy losses as delivery operators slash prices to win contracts with retail groups. It has also been plagued by some delivery disruption at peak times, leading to a three-day backlog before Christmas.

Yodel Logistics Limited entered into a mortgage with HSBC on December 14 2012, refinancing its existing debt facilities, according to company filings. As of June 2013, the company had a £242m bank loan, repayable within two years, at an interest rate of 3.5 per cent above Libor. The existence of the loan was first reported by the Guardian newspaper.

Yodel Logistics’ parent company is Yodel Distribution Holdings, which is controlled by Sir David and Frederick Barclay, who paid £665m to buy the Daily Telegraph in 2004. Yodel Distribution Holdings reported pre-tax losses of £112m in the year ending June 2013.

Since then, competition in the online delivery sector has intensified, resulting in the collapse of rival City Link in December.

Shop Direct, the Barclays’ home shopping empire spun out of the Littlewoods catalogue business, also has HSBC among its lenders. The company declined to comment.

In a resignation letter published this week, Mr Oborne voiced concerns that the Telegraph’s editorial coverage has been influenced by advertising contracts. Several newspaper employees have since supported his allegations.

The revelation of Yodel’s loan shines a light on the relationship between the Telegraph and the Barclays’ other financial interests.

A news report about Yodel’s Christmas delivery problems was published on the Telegraph website in December 2014, but is no longer available. Yodel and the Telegraph did not respond to requests for comment about the article.

In its editorial, the Telegraph said that the HSBC tax avoidance allegations had been “enthusiastically promoted by the BBC, the Guardian and their ideological soulmates in the Labour party”.

The article did not refer to Mr Oborne, or its fellow conservative news organisation, the Daily Mail, which, according to an analysis by the Media Standards Trust, has written more stories on the HSBC scandal than any other British newspaper.

The Telegraph said it was “drawing up guidelines that will define clearly and openly how our editorial and commercial staff will co-operate in an increasingly competitive media industry”.