New INM chief says Independent is not for sale

Independent News & Media’s incoming chief executive Gavin O’Reilly rebuffs claims that the struggling Independent titles are up for sale or due to be closed.

However, the son of Sir Anthony O’Reilly – who announced plans to step down from INM after 36 years earlier today (see Sir Anthony O’Reilly is set to leave INM)- did confirm that the titles will move from Canary Wharf to the Kensington base of the Daily Mail & General Trust.

O’Reilly said the move will “substantially eradicate” the losses at the newspapers, which reportedly lost more than £9 million last year.

“There are no plans to sell the titles. The move is all about eliminating our losses across the papers,” he added – it is thought that INM’s plans could save the company around £10 million a year.

O’Reilly ruled out sharing editorial resources with the DMGT – he said the company planned to concentrate on back office functions such as IT operations.

INM is set to reduce its board members from 17 to 10 over the next three months following the departure of Sir Anthony O’Reilly, who is due to leave the company on May 7 – his 73rd birthday.

Earlier today, INM also confirmed that it will issue its preliminary 2008 results on April 24.

The group has faced turbulent times recently, with its market value drastically down from £760 million to £36 million in the last 18 months.

INM also has a £178 million debt payment hanging over it.

News of Sir Anthony O’Reilly’s retirement comes just a day after the INM announced plans to make compulsory redundancies (see Independent to make compulsory redundancies).

The Independent plans to make 60 journalists redundant out of a total of 90 job losses, and will impose compulsory redundancies if not enough volunteers come forward.

The Independent suffered a relatively large year on year decline of 18.5% in the last ABC release (for February 2008) – leaving its circulation at under 206,000 copies (see ABC National Newspaper Round-Up: February 2009).