Northern & Shell, the new owner of Express Newspapers, has sold the group’s internet sites for a nominal fee. The ownership of the sites – which include Express.co.uk, Sportlive.co.uk and Allaboutparents.com – has been transferred to stockbroker Seymour Pierce for £1.
The move is part of a series of cost-cutting moves by Northern & Shell chairman, Richard Desmond, who bought the group for £125m last month. It is believed that the sites were losing up to £8m a year.
Express is the latest publisher to react to fallout in the dotcom sector by scaling back investment in new media. Yesterday, former owners of the Express, United Business Media, announced it was to halve its online spend and Emap and News International have also been forced to change their spending plans.
There was no-one available for comment at Express Newspapers.
