INM Gets Big Print Deal

A top Irish newspaper group is to become one of Europe's biggest producers of daily titles.

Deals worth £40m will mean the loss-making Belfast Telegraph can now be more confident about its future.

Owners, Independent News and Media (NI) said it had reached long-term deals with two UK newspaper giants to print editions for both sides of the Irish border.

All sections of the Daily Telegraph will be printed at its plant in Newry, for the next 15 years.

It also won the contract to print the Daily Mirror on the Belfast Telegraph's presses for another seven years.

The contracts worth a total of £40m mean that INM in Northern Ireland will now be printing all Mirror titles and the Telegraph titles, together with the Sun, News of the World, the Daily Express and Sunday Express, the Daily Star and the London Independent.

It also prints the Irish Star, the Sunday World and the Sunday Tribune, as well as a series of magazines for the Independent in London.

The 'Tele' reported a loss last month with advertising revenue down and said it did not expect recovery this year.

It made a pre-tax loss of €48.5m (£42.7m) for the first six months of 2009, compared with a €96.6m profit in the first half of 2008.

The company warned that its full-year earnings would be at the bottom end of current expectations.

Advertising revenue was down 19.6% in the period and no recovery is expected in the second half of the year.

The Dublin-based owners INM was also supposed to have repaid a €200m bond in May and has been rolling it over since then.

It is also due to repay €50m of bank debt in September.

As a result of the losses, the company said it would not be paying an interim dividend.

See: Belfast 'Tele' Reports News Of Losses

(BMcC)