Company that owns Yorkshire Post gone

well it’s not a Yorkshire paper anyway.
Leon will be ok, top reporter. Rest can sail down with it.

 

Cheers pal Only been working for the Yorkshire Post 29 years. You do realise there’s more than just journalists needed to put a paper together.

I got the text from our Chief Executive at 21:30 last night. Didn’t notice it until 1:30 this morning, so as you can imagine, not much sleep had here.

Sounds like it’s a pre-pack administration with the bond holders becoming the new owners. More details being released over the weekend. We’ve simply been asked to turn up for work Monday as normal.

The writings been on the wall for a good 5+ years. Enourmous debt built up due to acquisitions made just before the financial crash in 2008. This also coincided with the downturn in print advertising revenues and the emergence of Facebook and Google.

The Johnston Press share price at one point valued the company at £1.4b. In current weeks it was around £3m. This with debts of £220m and a pension deficit of £40m.

The bonds on the debt needed to be refinanced next June and with declining profits of around £20m per year, that was never going to happen. Especially when approx £10m a year was paying the interest on the debt.

So, whilst you may be happy to see the Yorkshire Post - ‘Sail down with it’ Remember this effects over 200 newspaper titles and over 2,100 staff. And we are not all journalists.

Here’s a tweet from our Editor in Chief with link to the email we were text at 21:30 last night.

 

2100 staff about the same number worked at Grimethorpe Colliery when I first started , and there was a pit in every other village round our way ..

 

Sad to hear this. I started out as an intern at The Scarborough News. Hope it works out. All the best.

 

JP used to employ over 5,000. I first started at the Yorkshire Post In 1989, worked night shift in production (pre-press) for 9 years. Back then we had 120 night staff and 100 on days (In Production). Each newspaper had similar production setups (Sheffield, Preston, Harrogate, Wigan).
This was all lost years ago when JP outsourced pre-press to India.
I’d already moved into IT by then so I survived that cull. And I’ve seen many.
I’ve seen out 3 owners so far. UPN, RIM and now Johnston Press. Only just gone 51 yr old, so fingers crossed this isn’t the end. Many titles are still profitable, just not enough to finance £220m of debt.

 

All the best for the future, I hope everything works out well for you.

 

Cheers Mario.

Being a pre-pack arrangement does sound encouraging. Better than being held in admin for a month and then put into liquidation.

As we keep being told, our papers are still profitable. Just not enough to finance the debt.

 

There was a statement from Johnston Press on the radio earlier and it sounded like they are quite positive about the future. As an employee, I would still be concerned but like you say it could be worse.

 

You take care mate. Seems quite promising going forward. My mate works for The Star and reckons it’s been coming for ages but you can never prepare for it. All the best.

 

Just got an update text from our Chief Executive (David King). We’ve apparently been acquired by our debt holders under a company called JPIMedia.