Sunday Times: 'Investors want more regional consolidation from Trinity Mirror'

Investors are urging Trinity Mirror to restart efforts to find a regional merger partner, a year after talks broke down to combine with Northcliffe, the Sunday Times Business section reports.

It claims Trinity Mirror is under pressure to do something that will revive its share price, which has fallen by two-thirds in a year as advertising remains oppressive.

The paper quotes David Lis at Aviva Investors, Trinity’s second-largest shareholder, which has a 10% stake as saying: “It’s imperative that there’s consolidation within the regional newspapers space. The question is how it’s financed and executed — but it simply has to happen.”

Analysts at Citigroup expect Trinity this week to report a 28% fall in underlying half-year profits to £38m, on sales £10m lower at £373m.

• The Telegraph has already warned Trinity Mirror is considering a major increase in cost cuts which could lead to significant job losses
• The Sunday Times is behind a paywall.

Telegraph predicts jobs to go at Trinity Mirror

Trinity Mirror is considering a major increase in cost cuts which could lead to significant job losses, the Telegraph has warned.

It says the group, set to report its half-year results on August 12, is expected to increase cost savings to about £25m this year.

"The move is likely to trigger job losses, a large number of which would be journalists, although sources said that synergies such as outsourcing were also being explored and job cuts were not the only solution.

"Earlier this year, the company, which has been through a series of cuts, increased its cost savings target for the year to £15m. That could now be increased by around another £10m," the Telegraph says.

FT: 'Trinity Mirror to review editorial procedures'

Trinity Mirror, the publisher of the Daily Mirror, has launched a review of its editorial controls and procedures amid investor anxiety that phone-hacking allegations could spread beyond the now-defunct News of the World, the Financial Times reports today.

“We have to check whether any regulations and controls are dysfunctional and whether bad practice has set in,” said a senior Trinity employee, who declined to be named. “We also need ... to ensure that the provenance of stories is understood at senior editorial levels.”

Trinity saw its shares fall 9.8 per cent on Monday over deepening concern among investors that the phone-hacking scandal that has ripped through Rupert Murdoch’s News International was not isolated to one newspaper group.

According to the Financial Times, "Paul Vickers, Trinity’s group legal director, will lead a six-week review encompassing all of the group’s national and regional papers, including the Daily Record, the Sunday Mirror and the People, and will report back to Trinity’s board in mid-September."

Editor Paul Robertson to leave Newcastle Chron

Editor Paul Robertson has resigned from the Evening Chronicle in Newcastle to "seek a new challenge". He is also Trinity Mirror's editorial director for the North East.

Robertson, who has overseen the Chronicle's switch to early morning publication, said: "Having project managed the recent change in the Chronicle publishing schedule, I think it's now the right time for me to seek a fresh challenge. The team in the North East is outstanding and I would like to thank them all for their support. I will miss the place but most of all the people I have worked with, many of whom are friends as well as colleagues. I wish everyone at ncjMedia and GMC the best of luck and success for the future."

He will leave the company on July 29.

Bob Cuffe, regional managing director, said, "Paul has been a passionate ambassador for our business - he's been a positive influence across the region, and proud of the newspapers he's worked on. Alongside his editorial skills, Paul's always been very commercially aware, always eager to support his commercial colleagues. We wish him all the best in the future. Paul will be a tough act to follow, and I'll be working on the future editorial structure in the weeks ahead."

Why Northcliffe would be a good deal for Trinity

Sunday Times city editor James Ashton is again suggesting that Northcliffe would be a good acquisition for Trinity Mirror.

He wrote in his column: "There isn’t much good news in Trinity Mirror’s share price right now. Since the newspaper group released its annual results on March 3, the stock has tumbled 42%.It puts the market value of Trinity, which owns 160 regional newspapers and five national titles, at £127m — little more than eight weeks of revenue. Sly Bailey, the chief executive, must be worried.In the market’s eyes, the company she has run for the past eight years is drifting into HMV territory."

He suggests: "Bailey desperately needs to find deals like her acquisition of the Guardian’s regional titles last year to squeeze out more savings. Northcliffe, the Daily Mail’s regional arm, is the pick of the bunch, but Trinity’s share price only makes a tie-up harder. If Northcliffe is broken up, Trinity could pick off some bite-sized chunks."

On Trinity Mirror, Ashton claims: "There are few pure British newspaper groups for a reason. Most publishers realised years ago it made sense to diversify. That is why most of the big titles are now part of companies that run used-car websites, trade fairs, pay-TV and publish school textbooks.Trinity has chosen to do newspapers and websites, pure and simple. With the economy so bleak, the market might be spooked by that strategy but the shares look incredibly cheap nonetheless."

• The Sunday Times is behind a paywall