Major changes at Trinity Mirror

THE new boss of newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror is closing down its daily deals platform Happli and trimming his senior management team with two major departures.

Former HMV boss Simon Fox is uniting the management of the group’s national and regional titles, which include the Mirror and Sunday Mirror and locally the Birmingham Post, the Birmingham Mail, the Coventry Telegraph and the Stafford Post newspapers.

As a result, Georgina Harvey, managing director – regionals and Nick Fullagar, director of corporate communications are leaving the business.

The rationale for the changes is to create a single structure to ensure editorial, advertising and support functions can operate as effectively as possible, the publisher said.

Daily deals unit Happli – which was only launched earlier this year and employed more than 30 people in Liverpool – will be shut down as Trinity feels it is “unlikely to reach sufficient scale to become profitable in the near term”.

Fox said: “It has very quickly been confirmed to me that Trinity Mirror is a business with great brands, passionate and dedicated people and significant unrealised potential.

“What has become clear in my first few weeks is that realising this potential requires a flatter and more efficient management structure that connects strategic decision making more closely with the journalistic heart of the business.”

As part of the new structure Mark Hollinshead, previously MD of the national newspapers has been promoted to chief operating officer, and he will lead the consolidated publishing operations.

Hollinshead, who also joins the plc board as an executive director, will receive base pay of £375,000 a year with the ability of earning a 75% bonus of his salary.

Trinity Mirror said trading remains in line with expectations and would be publishing a trading statement on November 8.