Northcliffe owns 20 daily regional titles, including the Nottingham Evening Post, 27 paid-for weeklies and 62 free titles. It made an operating profit of £102m, up 1.5% on last year, on more or less flat revenues of £520m, despite one week's less trading.
DMGT believes that even after a round of cost-cutting in the summer at Northcliffe, there is "considerable potential" to improve its performance, but that it could get more value for shareholders by selling to an outsider. It has asked Greenhill & Co financial advisers to look at a sale option.
The broader picture at DMGT was of weakness in its Associated national newspapers division, offset by growth in its information publishing and Euromoney divisions.
Annual revenue grew by 1% year-on-year to £2.14m from £2.11m. Pre-tax profit was up by 31% to £162.9m from £124.6m.
Associated, to which DMGT emphasised it is "fully committed", continues to encounter a challenging advertising market, with classified revenues down 6.2%. Free newspaper Metro increased its ad revenue by 13.8%, while the paid-for titles such as the Daily Mail saw a 3.4% decrease.
"The new financial year has started as the old one ended. The advertising markets experienced by the group's UK newspaper businesses show no sign of recovery yet," DMGT stated.
Although Associated revenues fell 1% to £877m, cost-cutting helped it to achieve its highest operating profit to date of £95.1m, up 5%.
Covering internet publishing, DMGT said that Northcliffe's operation moved into profit for the year, but made no explicit comment on Associated's internet operation other than it had strengthened its position in jobs, while the move into property through the acquisition of Findaproperty.co.uk was going well.
Elsewhere within DMGT, the Teletext business experienced a 14% fall in revenue, although the Australian radio business grew revenue by 39%.
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