The Daily Mirror group, Trinity Mirror, has confirmed it is back in talks with Richard Desmond about a potential tie-up with Express Newspapers, owner of the Express and the Star.
Trinity Mirror, which has seen its share price fall by 42% in the last year, said it was in “early stage” talks with Desmond’s Northern & Shell, the parent company of Express Newspapers. The talks are also thought to involve Desmond’s OK! magazine, which was part of the negotiations two years ago.
“The board of Trinity Mirror notes the recent media speculation and confirms that it is at an early stage of discussions towards taking a minority interest in a new company comprising certain of Northern & Shell’s assets,” the company said in an announcement to the stock market. “No offer has been made and there is no certainty that any agreement will be reached.”
The two companies held talks about a potential deal two years ago. The negotiations fizzled out, however, over disagreements about price and the pension deficit at Desmond’s paper.
Negotiations, which are thought to have started late last year, are focused on a potential merger of back office and sales operations to make significant savings.
The talks come as UK national newspaper publishers including Trinity Mirror, the Telegraph, the Sun and Times owner News UK and the Guardian explore combining print and digital advertising sales to fight back against the growing dominance of Google and Facebook.
Express Newspapers is not involved in the initiative, Project Juno.
In May last year, the firm reported it had __more than tripled pre-tax profits in 2015 to £30.5m after slashing staff and printing costs.
Desmond has been thinning his media portfolio in recent years, selling Channel 5 to MTV’s owner, Viacom, for £463m in 2014.
He also sold his adult TV business in April last year, including the Television X and Red Hot channels, severing his last link with the industry that helped make him a billionaire. He sold his adult magazine titles including Asian Babes and Big Ones for about £20m in 2004.
Desmond acquired Express Newspapers in 2000 for £125m. He was seeking __more than £100m to take full control of Express Newspapers and OK! in the talks held two years ago. Northern & Shell also owns the loss-making Health Lottery.
Last year, Trinity Mirror looked at buying Evgeny Lebedev’s i newspaper, the cut-price national newspaper originally launched to support the Independent. It was outbid by the regional publisher Johnston Press, which acquired i for £24.4m last February.
Lebedev closed the print editions of the Independent and Independent on Sunday the following month.
In a bid to drive growth in the national newspaper market – like other publishers, Trinity has seen consistent double-digit declines in print advertising – the company moved to launch its own low-cost title in May. New Day, which had a £5m launch with the tagline “Seize the New Day”, closed after just two months.
When the last talks between Desmond and Trinity Mirror broke down, the Mirror publisher secured a £220m deal to buy the regional newspaper publisher Local World.
The deal added more than 100 regional newspaper titles to Trinity Mirror’s existing 130 local papers, spanning titles from the Nottingham Post and Cambridge News to the Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo.
Trinity Mirror and Northern & Shell declined to comment.