In a trading update published on Friday (29 June) ahead of its 2018 interim results announcement on 30 July, the group, which has recently rebranded from Trinity Mirror, said its overall revenue increase reflects its February-announced deal, which was approved by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport last month.

Had Northern & Shell’s publishing assets been owned from the beginning of 2017, group revenue on a like-for-like basis would have been expected to fall by 7% over the period, with print declining by 9% and digital growing by 5%.

Group revenue on a like-for-like basis over the period excluding the Northern & Shell contribution is expected to fall by 8%. Publishing revenue is expected to fall by 8% with print falling by 10% and digital increasing by 1%.

Digital display and transactional revenue is expected to grow by 7% with classified advertising, which is predominantly upsold from print, expected to fall by 19%.

For the period from the completion of the Northern & Shell deal to 1 July, revenue for Northern & Shell’s publishing assets is expected to fall by 3% on a like-for-like basis, with print falling by 5% and digital growing by 25%.

Reach said it continues to generate strong cashflows with net debt, reflecting the cash consideration it paid for the Northern & Shell assets, which was estimated to be £85m at the end of June.

The company said it anticipates its performance for the year to be “in line with market expectations” and that the impact of higher than anticipated newsprint prices in the second half of the year is expected to be offset by the delivery of synergies resulting from the Northern & Shell deal.

Chief executive Simon Fox said: “We have seen some improvement in May and June driven by stronger national print advertising.

“Following the welcome clearance by the secretary of state, we will start the process of integrating [Northern & Shell’s publishing assets] in order to accelerate the benefits that our combined scale will deliver.”

Separately, Reach said that while it continues to make progress on settling civil claims in relation to historical phone hacking, the costs associated with settling these claims, predominantly the legal fees of the claimants' lawyers, are expected to be higher than previously estimated.

It has therefore increased the provision for settling these historical claims by £7.5m, taking the total amount set aside to £70.5m.

The group added that, while uncertainty remains as to how these matters will progress, the board “remains confident that the exposures arising from these historical events are manageable and do not undermine the delivery of the group's strategy”.

Reach’s share price climbed by 2.7p to 78.7p after the trading update was released but has since fallen to 76p at the time of writing.