As Trinity Mirror Gets New Name, Another Thing Stays: Weak Sales

(Bloomberg) -- Trinity Mirror Plc is rebranding with the name Reach to emphasize its scale as one of the U.K.'s largest newspaper and magazine groups absorbs rivals in an industry struggling with a digital shift.

Shareholders will vote May 3 on scrapping the name adopted in 1999 when Mirror Group and Trinity merged to bring together newspaper titles founded as early as the mid 19th century. The current name is no longer representative of Trinity Mirror after it bought the publishing assets of domestic rival Northern & Shell last month for 127 million pounds ($175 million), the company said in a statement Monday.

“Having just one of those brands, however important it is, in the company name, no longer felt appropriate,” Chief Executive Officer Simon Fox said in a phone interview. “We reach across different platforms, we also reach huge numbers of people.”

Trinity Mirror now owns over 100 newsbrands, and plans more acquisitions -- but the priority for 2018 is integrating the Northern & Shell titles, the synergies of which should be fully felt by 2020, Fox said. Publishers have an appetite to collaborate more as well as merge through deals, he added, to secure the advertising sales flocking to digital platforms like Facebook and Google. “I would expect to see collaborative ventures over the coming months,” he said.

Trinity Mirror follows other media companies in seeking quirky or unique names amid digital disruption, such as Chicago-based Tribune Media Co.'s Tronc Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.'s Oath Inc.

Group full-year profit after tax fell 9.6 percent to 62.8 million pounds, the company also said in the statement. The stock rose 1.6 percent to 76.70 pence at 10 a.m. in London. So far, print revenues are still falling faster than digital revenues can offset them. “If titles become unprofitable then we do have to close them,” Fox said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Seal in London at tseal@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rebecca Penty at rpenty@bloomberg.net, Kim Robert McLaughlin

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