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Trinity Mirror's surprise boost
29 Jul 2010Shares in Trinity Mirror jumped 15p to 90¾p on the surprise news that its recent purchase of regional newspapers from the Guardian is already producing healthy profits.
Trinity paid a rock bottom £7.4 million for the newspapers, which include the Manchester Evening News, at a time when few in the industry expected profits growth from local papers. It also spent £37.4 million buying out a printing contract.
Today it said the deal had contributed £2.7 million of operating profits in the past three months. Trinity's overall pre-tax profit rose 61% to £50.4 million on unchanged revenues of £382.2 million in the six months to June.
Chief executive Sly Bailey is on the lookout for further regional newspaper buys.
She said: “I believe that scale is an important driver of growth; the results out of Guardian Media Group are a case in point. Further consolidation is about timing, price and the general state of the economy to ensure we can deliver value for shareholders.”
