British Indian newspaper publisher Gary Gurmit, the managing director of Southnews, has awarded himself a Diwali bonanza with the sale of his local newspaper chain to the Mirror group of newspapers. Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily and Sunday Mirror, has paid a whopping 284.6 million pounds in cash for the company, which has 84 weekly paid for and free titles in Greater London, Essex and Kent. London's Evening Standard newspaper reported that for the half-year ending September 30, both the paid for and free titles of Southnews had sales of 47.6 million pounds and pre-tax profits of 7.8 million pounds. Confirming the sale, Nairobi-born Gurmit, a founding director of the chain, said he would be staying on as a non-executive director at the request of the new owners.The flagship of the group, Eastern Eye, which caters to the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, is believed to have a weekly readership in excess of 30,000. The Ethnic Media Group (EMG), a wholly owned subsidiary of Southnews, in turn owns it. Before it was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1988, Southnews was a small group of 10 local newspapers based in West London. "I've been there from the beginning, all the way from the 1980s, that makes me one of the founders. I got interested in the ethnic media in the mid-1990s when I looked around and I saw nothing very strong available for the ethnic community.
I decided to launch a title, but in that process I came across Eastern Eye, which at the time was a very small newspaper," Gurmit, 49, said. "It was very small then, but we provided them with capital and an ability to grow. Now all three of us executive directors are leaving. Trinity Mirror will have their management. We've been talking to their management", he added.
It's a complete change, said Gurmit whose parents migrated to Britain in 1968. "Having said that they've asked me to stay as a part time chairman of the Ethnic Media Group and that's because of my particular personal interest. So I will still be involved in the Ethnic Media Group, but not in Southnews as such," he said.
(India Abroad News Service)
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