The north’s oldest daily newspaper the News Letter will have new owners from March.
Shareholders at its parent company National World voted overwhelmingly to approve a takeover by Irish group Media Concierge, valuing the company at more than £65 million.
Media Concierge, led by Malcolm Denmark, owns Iconic Media, with a portfolio that includes the Derry News, The Donegal Democrat, Mayo News and The Limerick Leader.
The deal to is expected to come into effect on March 7 after regulatory approval.
As well as the New Letter (founded in 1737) National World also owns a raft of daily and weekly titles across the UK, including The Yorkshire Post and The Scotsman.
Its stable of titles locally includes the Morton Newspaper Group, as well as the likes of the Banbridge Chronicle and Newry Reporter.
The deal, offering 23p per share and valuing National World at £65.1m, received approval from shareholders representing 99.91% of the total share capital.
Media Concierge, which already held a 28% stake in National World, first tabled an offer worth £56.2m in November, but this was rejected.
Of the 26 shareholders who voted on Thursday, 25 voted in favour and three against (reflecting that some shareholders cast some of their votes for and against).
The £65.1m purchase price is just over two-thirds annual revenue and seven times annual profit at the UK’s third largest regional news media group.
The acquisition must still be sanctioned at a Scheme Sanction Hearing on March 6, and if approved, it means shares in National World cease to trade the following day.
Media Concierge began the takeover bid at the end of October and formally announced the attempt to the market the following month. The company was one of National World’s original backers and already owned 27.8% of the publisher.
The takeover will see the end, for now at least, of Australian-born but Northern Ireland educated National World chairman David Montgomery (76), who has been a giant of the media world for more than four decades.
He had a successful career as a journalist, rising through the editorial ranks of Mirror Group and News Corp ultimately becoming editor of the News of World. He later became an executive at News Corp and then as chief executive of Mirror Group between 1992 and 1999.
In 2000 he founded Mecom Group, a London-based investment company that would specialise in mergers and acquisitions of newspaper and media companies in continental Europe, and it embarked on a series of magazine and newspaper acquisition deals
In 2012 he formed Local World Limited, and acquired a number of regional papers which were later sold to Trinity Mirror (now known as Reach), with Montgomery going on to form a new company called National World, which in 2020 bought JPIMedia.
Media Concierge’s founder and owner Malcolm Denmark has pledged “to invest in the company’s editorial output” and said it would “not make material job reductions in editorial or production areas” or close any local brands.
