The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity.

[4] Launched in November 2006,[5] it made selections from The Guardian and The Observer's magazine supplements available to an international audience of English-speakers.

In December 2007, it was announced that GMG and Apax had made a successful bid to buy Emap's business-to-business arm for around £1 billion.

[14] In October 2017, the Guardian Media Group reported a plan to launch a new £42 million venture capital fund.

[17] In May 2021, The Daily Telegraph reported Guardian editor Katharine Viner and Thomas were in conflict over finances and the direction the newspaper should take.

Thomas had earlier said at a media industry conference "we have quality content in spades ... the job at hand is to now go further by strengthening the growing elements of our business".

[21] Subsequently Anders Jensen, chief executive of Viaplay, resigned as a GMG non-executive director because of the appointment process, in particular the level of influence exerted by Guardian editor Katharine Viner.

[31] In 2014, The Guardian launched a membership scheme, aiming to avoid introducing a paywall and maintaining open access to the website.

As of 2018, this approach was considered successful, having brought more than 1 million subscriptions or donations, with the paper hoping to break even by April 2019,[32] a goal they achieved in May 2019.