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Apollo in talks to finance New York Sun-owner's £550m Telegraph bid
Mr Zahawi, who has been tipped for a peerage in Rishi Sunak's resignation honours list, and Sir Mohamed are expected to invest tens of millions of pounds in the deal if it goes ahead.
In September, Sky News revealed that Sir Mohamed had been approached to provide as much as £150m to a standalone bid for the Telegraph titles that were being spearheaded at the time by Mr Zahawi.
If completed, the transaction will crystallise an unlikely profit for RedBird IMI, the Abu Dhabi-backed vehicle which paid £600m to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine.
Depending on the final structuring of the deal, it could be worth as much as £575m, with less than a third of that expected to be in the form of debt.
The Spectator was recently sold for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, who has installed Michael Gove, the former cabinet minister, as its editor.
Insiders said that Mr Zahawi was likely to be handed an ongoing role at the Telegraph if the bid from Mr Efune was successful.
The former chancellor, education secretary and vaccines minister has been involved in the Telegraph process in various guises, initially helping broker a deal with RedBird IMI before assembling his own offer.
He has close connections to many of the Gulf-based figures involved in the process, including Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, chairman of the bidding vehicle.
Mr Zahawi has also since been named chairman of Very Group, the online retailer owned by the Barclay family which controlled the Telegraph for two decades, and which is now part-funded by IMI.
The UAE-based IMI, which is controlled by the UAE's deputy prime minister and ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, extended a further £600m to the Barclays to pay off a loan owed to Lloyds Banking Group, with the balance secured against other family assets.
Mr Efune's bid has raised the extraordinary possibility of a return to the British newspaper group for Conrad Black, its former proprietor, Sky News reported earlier in the autumn.
Other bidders for the Telegraph included National World, the London-listed vehicle headed by former Mirror newspapers chief David Montgomery, and Lord Saatchi, the former advertising mogul, who offered £350m.
Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail proprietor, pulled out of the bidding earlier in the summer amid concerns that he would be blocked on competition grounds.
The Telegraph auction is being run by Raine Group and Robey Warshaw, the advisers to the Abu Dhabi-backed entity which was thwarted in its efforts to buy the media titles by a change in ownership law.
In September, Sky News revealed that Sir Mohamed had been approached to provide as much as £150m to a standalone bid for the Telegraph titles that were being spearheaded at the time by Mr Zahawi.
If completed, the transaction will crystallise an unlikely profit for RedBird IMI, the Abu Dhabi-backed vehicle which paid £600m to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine.
Depending on the final structuring of the deal, it could be worth as much as £575m, with less than a third of that expected to be in the form of debt.
The Spectator was recently sold for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, who has installed Michael Gove, the former cabinet minister, as its editor.
Insiders said that Mr Zahawi was likely to be handed an ongoing role at the Telegraph if the bid from Mr Efune was successful.
The former chancellor, education secretary and vaccines minister has been involved in the Telegraph process in various guises, initially helping broker a deal with RedBird IMI before assembling his own offer.
He has close connections to many of the Gulf-based figures involved in the process, including Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, chairman of the bidding vehicle.
Mr Zahawi has also since been named chairman of Very Group, the online retailer owned by the Barclay family which controlled the Telegraph for two decades, and which is now part-funded by IMI.
The UAE-based IMI, which is controlled by the UAE's deputy prime minister and ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, extended a further £600m to the Barclays to pay off a loan owed to Lloyds Banking Group, with the balance secured against other family assets.
Mr Efune's bid has raised the extraordinary possibility of a return to the British newspaper group for Conrad Black, its former proprietor, Sky News reported earlier in the autumn.
Other bidders for the Telegraph included National World, the London-listed vehicle headed by former Mirror newspapers chief David Montgomery, and Lord Saatchi, the former advertising mogul, who offered £350m.
Lord Rothermere, the Daily Mail proprietor, pulled out of the bidding earlier in the summer amid concerns that he would be blocked on competition grounds.
The Telegraph auction is being run by Raine Group and Robey Warshaw, the advisers to the Abu Dhabi-backed entity which was thwarted in its efforts to buy the media titles by a change in ownership law.