Trinity Mirror boss blasts predecessor Sly Bailey
Trinity Mirror boss Simon Fox has launched an extraordinary attack on his predecessor, Sly Bailey, claiming that she ‘set the bar very low’ during her controversial tenure at the newspaper group.
Fox, who took over from Bailey in September of last year, said he was astounded by the disorganisation and inertia he encountered upon taking up his post. He said: “I’ve been very surprised at some of the decisions she took – or didn’t take. She set the bar very low for her successor.”
In particular Fox was concerned at an absence of any drive to migrate from print to digital during her decade long reign at the top.
Bailey was forced out of her plum post last year after presiding over a 90% collapse in the firms share price but not before grabbing a £1.8m compensation payout.
Fox earns £500k a year in the role, a third less than Bailey, but is incentivised to boost the share price with a £400k pro rata bonus up for grabs.
In a bid to turn the ship around Fox plans to provide more accurate readership numbers for its titles, including the Mirror, Daily Record and People, in order to win back the confidence of advertisers.
Trinity Mirror also recently bought a stake in Local World, an alliance of regional titles formerly published by Northcliffe, but has not yet decided whether to migrate its own regional titles into the grouping.