Shares in Trinity Mirror soar after it confirms Local World talks

Shares in the publisher of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror soared yesterday after it confirmed it was in talks to gobble up the 80 per cent of local newspaper group Local World it does not already own.

Trinity Mirror, up 8.25p or 6 per cent to 147.25p, owns 20 per cent of Local World, which has around 100 titles and 70 websites. It will have to buy up the 38.7 per cent owned by Daily Mail publisher Daily Mail and General Trust, 3p better at 784.5p, which also confirmed the potential sale.

A deal would mean a pay day for Crispin Odey, whose Odey Asset Management is a Local World shareholder, as is former Tory treasurer Lord Ashcroft. Earlier this year, Trinity was rumoured to be considering a takeover of Richard Desmond’s newspapers, which include the Daily Express.

Trading volumes were low as traders retreated to the sidelines at the start of a crucial week for the global economy, and the FTSE 100 drifted 33.17 points lower to 6,084.59.

The spotlight this week is very much on the US, which could decide to raise interest rates on Thursday, for the first time since 2006. September had been in rate-setters’ sights for several months, but recent market volatility has put a potential spanner in the works.

Arm Holdings, which powers Apple’s iPhones and iPads, was the top blue-chip riser, up 14p to 948p, after US financial paper Barron’s suggested the tech giant’s stock could gain as much as 50 per cent over the next 12 months if its new iPhone plan is a hit, which investors speculated would benefit ARM.

Morrisons continued its freefall, down another 7.4p to 157.8p, as HSBC cut its profit forecasts for the ailing supermarket group after last week’s store closures.

Media group UBM rose 2.6p to 485.2p, as dealers revived chatter of a sale of its news agency, PR Newswire.

US hedge fund Beach Point, investor in distressed companies, bought into the Quindell turnaround story, raising its stake to above 5 per cent. The troubled AIM-listed company, under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, began life under Indro Mukerjee, the new chief executive, last week. It fell 1.25p to 98p.