No sale on the horizon for Yorkshire Post’s owner

The potential sale of regional publisher JPIMedia, which owns the Yorkshire Post and Sheffield Star papers, appears to have been put on hold.

The company’s chief executive has confirmed it is “not actively exploring a sale” at present.

David King published the update in a message to staff. It comes nearly seven months after he revealed the company was looking into a sale of the business.

King originally confirmed the company was up for sale last July after rival publisher Reach announced it was in the early stages of negotiations to buy the publisher.

Reach is understood to have offered £50m for the group, excluding national daily the i, but later withdrew from bidding, as did publishing business Newsquest.

JPIMedia did complete a £49.6m deal to sell the i to DMGT – but this is now under investigation by the Government over competition concerns.

As reported on the Holdthefrontpage website today, King told staff: “I have said many times that I believe that the long-term future of our brands and business lies in being part of industry consolidation; that this didn’t happen in 2019 was disappointing, but the opportunity still remains.

“We are not actively exploring a sale of the business at this moment. In any event, our focus should continue to be on growing audiences and meeting the needs of our customers.”

In the same message, he also revealed the company had delivered profits despite revenues falling short of target.

And he noted Brexit related uncertainty had impacted advertising, due to people putting off large purchasing decisions.

He warned: “While we are making progress in digital and continue to grow our audience, we are still suffering print revenue decline and total revenues are still in overall decline.”