Mail & Mirror considered deal

MEDIA NEWS BITE: It was revealed last week that two of the UK’s biggest newspaper groups – the Daily Mail & General Trust and Trinity Mirror – recently considered a deal which would have given the former a stake in the latter.

The deal considered earlier this year would have seen the Daily Mail owners transfer ownership of their regional papers, operated by their Northcliffe business, to Trinity Mirror, who would merge them with their own regional newspaper business. In return the Mail would get both cash and shares in its rival.

The Guardian noted that had the deal gone ahead it would have been the first time Trinity Mirror had had a “strategic shareholder” since the days of Robert Maxwell. As it happened, the deal didn’t go through, though The Guardian cites Mail insiders as saying bosses there have not ruled it out as a future possibility.

Regional newspapers have suffered more than most in recent years as the bottom fell out of the classified ad market in the Google age. Trinity Mirror are the one company who seem to be tackling the challenges ahead in that sector by expanding through title acquisition, presumably hoping economies of scale will enable their growing regional newspaper portfolio to survive.

Posted Wednesday December 8 2010 by Chris Cooke