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Trinity Mirror ‘on course’ to deliver £12m Local World savings

Trinity Mirror logo thumbnailTrinity Mirror says it is on course to deliver its target of£12m ‘synergy savings’ from its takeover of fellow regional publisher Local World after posting a profit rise of 42pc.

The newly enlarged business saw its operating profit rise for the first half of the year rise from £47.9m in 2015 to £69.1m this year.

Revenues across the company rose by 30pc to £374.7m reflecting both the impact of the Local World purchase and an additional week’s trading.

However like-for-like figures, calculated as if Local World had been part of Trinity from the start of 2015, showed revenues for the six month period down 7.9pc year-on-year.

Trinity Mirror took full control of Local World in a £220m deal last autumn, making it the biggest regional newspaper publisher in the UK.

The company has since embarked on an integration project which has seen the creation of a new regional management structure, the roll-out of ‘digital first’ newsrooms across the group and the centralisation of some group-wide functions.

In a half-yearly update published today, Trinity Mirror said:  “We are pleased with the progress we are making with bringing Local World into our business and remain on track to deliver at least £12m of annualised synergy savings by 2017.”

Today’s update showed that the group delivered structural cost savings of £9m in the first half and expect to deliver at least £15m in the full year, including the synergy savings.

Other changes highlighted in the report included the rollout of new designs for the group’s regional titles with “less focus on crime, more reporting on things to do in the city and improved coverage in areas such as football and entertainment.”

Newspapers which underwent relaunches in the first half of the year included The Chronicle in Newcastle, the Manchester Evening News and the South Wales Echo, following on from the Liverpool Echo and the Birmingham Mail in the second half of 2015.

The report said the group’s regional websites continued to enjoy strong growth under the ‘Connected Newsroom’ strategy.

Like for like digital revenues grew by 14.4pc to £39.7 million although this was not enough to offset a 10.3pc decline in print revenues.

Commenting on the results, group chief executive Simon Fox said: “I am pleased we delivered another strong performance despite the challenging print environment.

“We are already seeing the benefits from our acquisition of Local World last year and continue to tightly manage the cost base across the Group.

“Our strategic focus remains to grow digital audience and revenue whilst protecting print revenue and profit.

“We are confident that our strategy and our strong balance sheet position will enable continued progress despite increased uncertainty around the economic environment.”

4 comments

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  • August 1, 2016 at 10:39 am
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    “Today’s update showed that the group delivered structural cost savings of £9m in the first half and expect to deliver at least £15m in the full year.” Excellent. Only another £6m to go, then, in the run-up to Christmas. Plenty to trim amongst the ranks of non-productive staff, which is no doubt where the axe will be falling.

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  • August 1, 2016 at 10:51 am
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    Nice work, guys – and you only had to destroy an entire industry and scores of people’s livelihoods to achieve it!

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  • August 1, 2016 at 11:32 am
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    “Less focus on crime, more reporting on things to do in the city and improved coverage in areas such as football and entertainment.”
    Or to put it another way, less news, more press releases.

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  • August 1, 2016 at 7:52 pm
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    A bit confused chaps sorry ‘ Our strategic focus remains to grow digital audience and revenue whilst protecting print revenue and profit.

    so they post a print revenue advertising loss of 10.3% lost ad revenues ?

    Maybe I’ve missed something? Can someone enlighten me please as I feel i am getting swamped with bull speak such as ‘ structural cost savings’ ‘ annualised synergy savings’ and connected this that and the other
    Basically all things considered they’ve recorded a rise but with adjustments would have recorded a loss of 7.9% y/y ?

    Oh for the days of plain speaking and clearly defined profit and loss reporting that us mere mortals could understand

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