DAILY MAIL and General Trust (DMGT), owners of the Metro and the MailOnline, announced bitter sweet results yesterday, with tremors of the pandemic still being felt across its titles.

Revenue was down one per cent to £1.1bn across the group, and the commuter paper Metro was running at "substantial losses", with remote working still a policy for many employers.

The only saving grace for DMGT was digital advertising, which accounted for two-thirds of the total ad revenues across the titles.

Paul Zwillenberg, chief executive, defined this period as a "historic" one for the group, and these set of results mark the last it will publish as a public company. It came a day after the group announced that Geordie Greig was standing down as editor of the Daily Mail, and would be replaced by Ted Verity, the current Mail on Sunday editor.

Verity will have oversight of both publications, suggesting the two teams it currently employs will be unnecessary.

Looking ahead, DMGT has already said it will continue to invest and utilise tech to drive profitability, which is likely to mean job cuts across its titles.

An insider to the politics of the Mail group said the move was a strategic one: boosting the position of the notorious Martin Clarke, who currently runs the highly-profitable MailOnline.

However, another crucial backdrop to the reshuffle is the upcoming privatisation of the group.

Principal shareholder Lord Rothermere finalised a complex £3bn deal to take DMGT private in early November and its investors have until 16 December to approve or reject it.

Following yesterday's results, analysts at Citi Research were relatively optimistic, and said: "We think the deal will proceed and there is optionality on a sweetener which suggests that the risk/reward at DMGT tilts positively."

They commented: "There are multiple moving parts given the disposals, but on an underlying basis the stronger-thanexpected 2021 results suggest upward pressure to consensus forecasts."

Shares were down 0.89 per cent to 1108p at close on the London Stock Exchange.

(c) 2021 City A.M., source Newspaper