Chairman of Trinity Mirror standing down

Newspaper group Trinity Mirror today confirmed City grandee Sir Victor Blank was standing down as its chairman.

Trinity Mirror – the owner of national titles such as the Daily Mirror and The People and regional titles the Liverpool Echo and Newcastle Evening Chronicle - said Sir Victor would retire as chairman at May’s AGM.

The announcement came as reports suggested Sir Victor was poised to become chairman of Lloyds TSB, although the bank refused to comment on the speculation today.

Sir Victor, 62, joined Mirror Group as chairman in July 1998 and oversaw the creation of the UK’s largest newspaper publisher when Mirror Group merged with Trinity in 1999.

It gave the new Trinity Mirror company – based at London’s Canary Wharf - about 240 local and regional newspapers, five national newspapers and four sports titles, including the Racing Post.

Trinity Mirror today said efforts to find a replacement for Sir Victor, who is also chairman of Argos-owner GUS, were “well advanced”.

Trinity Mirror chief executive Sly Bailey said: “Victor has made a huge contribution to the success of Trinity Mirror. He has been an outstanding chairman. It was Victor who cleared the way to create the UK’s largest newspaper publisher.”

Lloyds is expected to end its 18-month search for a successor to Maarten van den Bergh in the next couple of weeks and according to reports today Sir Victor is among the frontrunners.

Sir Victor has built a distinguished reputation in more than three decades in the City. As a senior banker at Charterhouse, he orchestrated the £300m (€440m) management bid for Woolworths in 1982 and later went on to become chief executive and chairman of Charterhouse.

Today he said: “Media and newspaper publishing is a fascinating and challenging industry.

“Our newspapers are part of our heritage and the opportunities presented by emerging technologies are enormous. Trinity Mirror has the strategies in place to capture and exploit them.

“The management team I leave behind are first rate and are fully focused on the delivery of the options for growth.”