"Financial logic" to Mail/Express merger - analyst
Newspaper analyst Jim Chisholm has told The Drum there would be "a financial logic" to the mooted Daily Mail and Express merger, but played down the likelihood of it happening.
The merger rumours have been doing the rounds since it was reported at the weekend that the Daily Mail and General Trust had held "informal" talks with Express owner Richard Desmond.
Chilsholm said: "The price Desmond could demand would be a premium against its worth on the open market, and the price paid by DMGT would be justified in that they could remove (or control) an irritating competitor.
"DMGT have great track record in two things: Firstly they have taken the Express to pieces over the last thirty years. Secondly they have proved extremely effective at encouraging readers from a competitor to their own title. They did this very effectively when Today closed, and recently have been doing a similar strategy in London."
But Chisholm added that he doubted any such deal would actually go ahead.
"It’s only a story, and these things go on all the time," he said.
"Will Richard Desmond want to lose the flag of respectability and influence that owning a daily newspaper brings?
"Then there are regulatory issues, but the reality is that the UK national newspaper market can not remain this crowded for ever."
Other analysts have also cast doubt on any potential deal between the papers.
Lorna Tilbian of Numis Securities unequivocally told the Telegraph: “The last thing [DMGT] are going to do is buy the Daily Express. They’ll just steal its readers.”