Trinity Mirror, publisher of titles including the Daily Mirror and the People, said it is to pay its first dividend for seven years, as the first major test case over phone hacking began in London.
“I’m very happy to be reporting good numbers,” said chief executive Simon Fox, who used to run HMV before being poached by the publishing group.
“Profits are up in a very tough market, where revenues fell by 4%.”
Headline pre-tax profits rose by 1% to £102 million on revenues of £636 million.
“Digital revenue growth was still not enough to offset falling print revenues,” said Fox. “But we have been very tight on costs and since the year end we are now virtually debt free.”
Print advertising revenues, which had declined 8.8% in the first half fell by a further 14.1% in the second half, with advertising from troubled supermarket chains Tesco and Morrisons particularly down.
Fox said: “The Daily Mirror, in particular, is very dependent on supermarket advertising and those chains which have seen some turmoil and changes at the top appeared to put advertising on hold for some time.”
Trinity Mirror did not increase the money it has set aside for hacking claims after it upped the amount by £8 million to £12 million last month.
Fox said: “The £12 million wasn’t plucked from the air and I hope that it is the right number. Most of the increase in the provisions we made was for extra legal costs.”
The group has admitted liability to hacking and apologised.
A court case starting in the High Court on Monday will determine the level of damages to eight representative celebrities, including Paul Gascoigne and the actresses Sadie Frost and Shobna Gulati, who were hacked.
Trinity said: “There remains ongoing uncertainty as to how matters will progress and whether or not new allegations or claims will emerge and their possible financial impact.
