 has announced plans to change its name to Reach following the deal to acquire Richard Desmond’s Express and Star. ){kind=link}
Trinity Mirror (LON: TNI) has announced plans to change its name to Reach following the deal to acquire Richard Desmond’s Express and Star.
Last month Trinity Mirror said it would buy the newspaper company, which also owns Ok! magazine, in a £126.7 million deal.
“We wanted a simple name, a Ronseal name – ‘it does what it says on the tin’ – that simply describes what we do,” said the chief executive of Trinity Mirror, Simon Fox.
“Trinity Mirror came about from the merger of two companies in 1999. Since then we have bought [regional newspaper publisher] Local World and [Express Newspapers owner] Northern and Shell. The old name no longer reflects the composition of the group. We felt it was necessary, out of respect for our new colleagues.”
Fox has said that the newspapers will remain editorially independent. “The Mirror is not going to go right-wing and the Express is not going to go leftwing,” he said to the Guardian. “They will absolutely all have editorial independence. Decisions on what goes into each title will be entirely down to the editors.”
The company’s share price increase by almost 15 percent in early trading on news of the merger between the UK newspapers.
As newspaper publishing continues to struggle in today’s market, Trinity Mirror saw a slight increase in pre-tax profits last year following a £20 million cost-cutting plan.
The group’s pre-tax profits grew slightly from £76.5 million to £81.9 million.
Fox said: “We once again delivered a strong financial performance in what remains a difficult trading environment for the industry.”
Digital revenue proved to be more promising, growing by seven percent to £83.9 million and totalling 13 percent of total revenues.
The change in the company’s name will be the first in 20 years. Investors will have to vote on the change at the publisher’s annual general meeting in May.