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Reach merges sales teams after government green lights Express deal

Simon FoxNewspaper publisher Reach has combined its two sales teams into one national group after the government gave the green light to its takeover of Northern & Shell.

The publisher’s forerunner Trinity Mirror purchased Richard Desmond’s group, which included the Daily Express and Daily Star, for £127m in February.

Culture and Media Secretary Matt Hancock ruled last week the deal required no further investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, and Reach has now announced the merger of the two groups’ sales operation.

The united team will be headed up by Reach’s chief revenue officer Andy Atkinson, who has been with the company since 2014.

According to Reach, Northern & Shell commercial director Toby Morris has “decided that this is an appropriate moment for him to leave the group and seek new opportunities”.

Simon Fox, pictured, chief executive of Reach plc, said, “Toby has done an outstanding job leading the Northern & Shell commercial team over the past three years, and he has built a sales team who are highly respected across the market.

“I would like to thank Toby for everything he has done and he departs with our very best wishes for the future.”

Andy added: “The newly combined sales team will give advertisers access to over 45 million people in the UK a month.

“As well as this valuable scale the portfolio represents diversity via nine politically and culturally different national newsbrands, the opportunity to reach people in the most trusted media environment via our 140 regional newspapers, and brand safety via our network of 60 professionally produced websites.”

* Like-for-like revenues at Reach fell by 8pc in the first half the year according to a trading update issued ahead of its interim results next month.

While overall revenue is expected to grow by 11pc during the period due to the Northern & Shell acquisition, revenues declined by 8pc once the Express and Star titles are excluded from the calculation.

Publishing revenue is expected to fall by 8pc with print down 10pc and digital up 1pc.

Digital display and transactional revenue is expected to grow by 7pc, but classified advertising, which is predominantly upsold from print, expected to fall by 19pc.

Mr Fox commented: “We have seen some improvement in May and June driven by stronger national print advertising.

“Following the welcome clearance by the Secretary of State, we will start the process of integrating Express & Star in order to accelerate the benefits that our combined scale will deliver.”

5 comments

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  • June 28, 2018 at 2:51 pm
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    I am getting so sick of this: Toby Morris has “decided that this is an appropriate moment for him to leave the group and seek new opportunities”. Strange coincidence, huh?

    In English: The axeman cometh (again).

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  • June 28, 2018 at 4:13 pm
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    Power up the chainsaw, Leatherface, there’s fresh meat on the farm! Didn’t take long, long, did it? Expect more plenty more “appropriate moments to leave” imminently.

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  • June 28, 2018 at 4:22 pm
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    They do like the stock phrase “seeking new opportunities” instead of telling it as it is don’t they? As in “..decided that this is an appropriate moment for him to leave the group and seek new opportunities”.

    Remember that episode of The Office where the Slough office is merged with ‘ the Swindon lot’ initially under David Brent?

    ..,,just saying

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  • June 29, 2018 at 11:54 am
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    All these percentages mentioned.
    But no real figures.
    Ho-hum………

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  • June 29, 2018 at 2:27 pm
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    Toggy’s typical of the cynical strand in journalism so for his or her benefit the actual figures are: digital up one percent from two-hundred quid to two-hundred and two quid, print down ten percent from £100m to £90m. (Figures for illustration purposes only). Let’s get moving on “accelerating the benefits” of the Express merger. Hmm, I wonder what they could be.

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