British broadcaster GB News, which is jointly owned by hedge fund giant Sir Paul Marshall and Dubai-based private investment firm Legatum via holding company All Perspectives, posted a £42.4m loss, forcing its owners to provide a further £41m in funding to cover operating costs, according to a report by the Financial Times.
The report cites 2022/23 Companies House accounts in revealing the broadcaster’s pre-tax loss of £42.4m from that of £30.8m in 2023.
GB News was launched in 2021, with Marshall’s stake amounting to about a third of All Perspectives. According to the Companies House accounts, GB News owes the holding company £83.8m following the latter’s agreement to provide a further £41m in funding over the course of the year.
Existing GB News investors will be expected to inject further funds this year to cover the broadcaster’s losses, which the report attributes to the costs of the broadcaster’s ambitions to become “the number one news channel in the United Kingdom by 2028”, according to an internal staff memo in February 2023.
GB News’s revenue increased to £6.6m in the year to May 2023 from £3.6m in the preceding 12-month period. Its television ad revenue rose to £4.2m from £3mn the year before, and digital revenue grew to £2.1m.
All Perspectives’s other Officers include Baroness Helena Morrissey, a former CEO of Newton Investment Management; George Farmer, a former CEO of Parler, the now defunct right-wing social networking service; Mark Stoleson, CEO and a Partner at Legatum; and Alan McCormick, a Partner at Legatum.
Marshall co-founded Marshall Wace, a British hedge fund firm and one of the world’s largest asset managers, alongside Ian Wace in 1997, where the former remains Chairman and CIO and the latter, CEO and Chief Risk Officer. Marshall also owns online media group UnHerd.
