SHARES in Mirror Group, the subject of bid speculation and owner of the Daily Mirror and the Glasgow-based Daily Record and Sunday Mail newspapers, increased 25.5p to a year's high of 243.5p, which values the company at more than #1000m.
The strong performance came despite yesterday's efforts by
Mirror to play down the takeover.
The market is still awaiting a move by German group Axel Springer, owner of Bild-Zeitung, Germany's most popular tabloid, which is mulling over an offer.
But Mirror Group yesterday confirmed that it had held talks with UK newspaper group Trinity International Holdings, although it appeared to rule out prospects of a move in that direction.
''Mirror Group will make a further announcement to its shareholders when Axel Springer's intentions have been clarified,'' the company said in a statement.
''In the meantime, it has been mutually agreed with Trinity that it would be inappropriate to progress discussions,'' it added.
Axel Springer is widely seen as the front-runner in any race for Mirror, although analysts are also looking for bids from other UK media groups as well as financial buyers.
Irish businessman Tony
O'Reilly's Independent Newspapers - owner of the Independent and Independent on Sunday after it bought Mirror's stake - has been mooted as having buy-out funds.
A Mirror spokesman, meanwhile, confirmed that Mirror's David Montgomery and Springer's Gus Fischer had talked over the holiday weekend.
However, the spokesman said there was no approach, it was a conversation on an unrelated matter although Montgomery took the opportunity to reiterate that if a bid did emerge, Mirror's main
concern was shareholder value.
So far as Trinity is concerned, there would bound to be
competition concerns.
Trinity, which owns the
Newcastle Journal and the
Liverpool Echo, has the largest number of UK provincial newspapers. Mirror Group, after last year's acquisition of Midland Independent Newspapers, owner of the Birmingham Post, is the sixth-largest provincial newspaper
proprietor in the country.
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