The newspaper group, owned by Richard Desmond’s holding company Northern & Shell, which publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, posted a fall in turnover, gross profit and pre-tax profit, along with an operating loss.

In its accounts for the year to 31 December 2016, turnover fell by 10%, from £173.7m to £157.1m, gross profit slipped 11% to £85.1m, while pre-tax profit more than halved from £30.5m to £13.3m. The group also posted an operating loss of £830,000 and its pension deficit rose by 6.7% to just top £23m, despite it paying £13.6m towards the deficit in its legacy defined-benefit pension schemes.

Earlier this month, Trinity Mirror - previously rumoured to be taking a minority stake in a new company comprising selected Northern & Shell assets - issued a Stock Exchange announcement outlining discussions to acquire 100% of Northern & Shell's publishing assets, which also includes the likes of OK!, New! and Star magazines. 

Well-known newspaper executive and investor David Montgomery had been linked to the initial, minority stake, deal.

At this point, there is still no certainty that any transaction would be agreed or completed and when PrintWeek approached Trinity Mirror today (2 October) asking if a deal was any closer to being agreed, it declined to comment.

Northern & Shell, which was unavailable for comment, has print suppliers that include GD Web Offset and YM Group. It also owns £24.8m-turnover newspaper printing operation Westferry Printers in Luton, while it closed its northern print facility, Broughton Printers in Preston, in 2015.

Last month, Trinity Mirror announced the closure of four weekly local newspaper titles in Kent, while in August it reached an agreement on new "mutually supportive" multi-year printing contracts with Johnston Press.