History
The Daily Mirror was launched by Alfred Harmsworth for gentlewomen in 1903. The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange on 2 December 1953.
In 1958 the International Publishing Company (IPC) acquired Mirror Group Newspapers, but IPC was in turn taken over by publishing giant Reed International in 1970. In 1984 Pergamon Holdings, a company owned by Robert Maxwell, acquired the Daily Mirror from Reed International. The Company was relisted as Mirror Group in 1991.
The company went on to buy Scottish & Universal Newspapers in 1992, and in 1997 it acquired the Birmingham Post and Mail.
Trinity Mirror was formed in September 1999 by the merger of Trinity plc, a company formed in 1985 to buy the Liverpool Post and Echo, with Mirror Group plc. As a condition of the merger Trinity Mirror was forced to sell the Belfast Telegraph group. The next year, the company acquired the regional publisher Southnews.
During 2005 the company introduced a number of measures to manage discretionary spending more carefully, some of which attracted press attention.
In 2007 the company sought to sell a number of titles: the Reading Chronicle was sold to Berkshire Media Group and 25 Trinity Mirror South titles were sold to Northcliffe Media. On 1 October 2007 it was announced that the sale of the Racing Post had been completed: the entire sale process had raised £263 million.
In September 2008 the company announced that it would be closing the printing plant in Liverpool after 154 years of printing in the city, and transferring the work to Oldham.
In February 2010, Trinity Mirror acquired the regional M.E.N. Media and S&B Media divisions of the Guardian Media Group, containing 22 local titles across Northern England and in Surrey and Berkshire; this includes the Manchester Evening News and Reading Evening Post.
In March 2010, Trinity Mirror stated that it will end its bout of staff cuts and newspaper closures. The announcement came as the company reported pre-tax profits of £72.7m for 2009, exceeding analysts expectations.
Read more about this topic: Trinity Mirror
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