By Oliver Haill
Date: Friday 15 Dec 2017
LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - Trinity Mirror said it was making "good progress" with talks to acquire the Daily Express and Daily Star and that digital revenues had risen in the fourth quarter but overall sales were lower.
The publisher of the Daily Mirror and a range of local newspapers spanning from the Manchester Evening News to Bristol Post reported like-for-like revenues were likely to fall 9% in the fourth quarter.
Digital display and transactional revenues were expected to grow 20% in the quarter, an improvement on the 14% growth from the third quarter.
However, this was not enough to offset declines in print advertising and circulation revenue of 21% and 7% respectively. Classified digital ads, which are generally jointly sold with print, remains under pressure, reducing expected publishing digital revenue growth for the quarter to 10%.
Management revealed that after completing the triennial pension review, contributions to the fund will increase by £8m to £44m for the 10 years from 2018, which was pretty much in line with expectations.
Trinity Mirror, which in September confirmed talks with Northern & Shell to acquire certain of its newspapers and other publishing assets, said "we continue to make good progress" and will provide further updates as and when appropriate.
https://www.digitallook.com/news/small-caps-news/trinity-mirror-in-talks-to-buy-express-and-star-newspapers--2849418.html
House broker Numis said the trading update "ultimately confirms confidence in achieving results for the year that are in line with expectations".
"Momentum on digital display and transactional revenues remains very encouraging."
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