Venture capitalists look again at Trinity Mirror

LONDON - Venture capitalist firm Candover Partners, which held talks with Trinity Mirror last year, is considering making another bid for the national and regional newspaper group.

Candover, in partnership with another venture capitalist firm Apax Venture Partners, held talks with Trinity Mirror last year, but in the end a failure to agree on price saw the talks come to nothing.

According to The Observer newspaper, Candover is interested in making a bid, which could be worth as much as 500p a share, a premium of more than £1 on Trinity Mirror's current share price.

Candover would buy the group and then proceed to break it up, selling off the three national newspapers, which includes the Daily Mirror, while holding on to Trinity Mirror's regional newspaper business, which includes the Liverpool Daily Post and the Western Mail.

The case for selling off the national titles is that, although prestigious, they drag down the performance of the much-better performing regional newspapers. This was in evidence when Trinity Mirror reported its results. The regional titles performed much better.

At the nationals, operating profit fell by £17.6m to £77.6m while the regionals saw operating profits grow 4.4% to £120.1m, despite turnover falling by 0.7% to £515.9m.

The fresh approach follows the arrival of new chief executive Sly Bailey. In her last job at IPC Media, Bailey oversaw the sale of the magazine publisher to AOL Time Warner.

As Trinity Mirror last week reported a small rise in pre-tax profits to £155.5m, Bailey refused to rule out the sale of the group's national newspapers, which also include The People and Sunday Mirror.

At the Trinity Mirror results announcement, Bailey confirmed that the company had been approached with bids last year by Apex and Candover, but the board rejected their bid of 450p a share as too low. A 500p-a-share bid is likely to be much more acceptable to shareholders.

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