Axel Springer Joins Bidding War for Daily Telegraph

German publishing giant Axel Springer, which publishes German tabloid Bild and broadsheet title Die Welt, is expected to make an offer in excess of €890 million ($1098 million) for British heavyweight newspaper The Daily Telegraph when the second stage of bidding gets underway later this week. Investment bank Lazards, which is handling the auction of the newspaper, has set a deadline of March 23 for all offers to be in. The German company had already made its advances known before Christmas but cooled on the deal as the competition heated up. Axel Springer considered buying British tabloid The Daily Mirror five years ago and is believed to want to expand outside its own domestic market. Unlike the newspaper the Germans have set their sights on, Axel Springer's papers are pro-European and operate according to a guiding editorial principle to "further the unification of Europe," a political stance at odds with the euro-sceptic Telegraph.