Trinity Mirror leaps as Local World deal pays

Shares in publisher Trinity Mirror jumped 6% earlier after it revealed a £10 million share buyback on the back of a 42% surge in profits.

Much of the growth came from last year’s £220 million deal to buy 80% of regional papers and website group Local World.

This helped push revenues up 30% to £375 million and pre-tax profits from £47 million to £66.9 million.

“These are the strongest results I can remember reporting,” said chief executive Simon Fox, in post since 2012. “Obviously Local World helped but we also saw good growth in digital, where we are now equivalent to MailOnline in the UK, according to comscore, and produced £40 million of revenue in the first half.”

As well as lifting the interim dividend by 5%, Trinity announced a £10 million share buyback, which Fox said: “In this environment, those are both signs of our confidence."

The group also said it would pump £7.5 million into the pension fund, where the deficit jumped by £121 million to £426 million as long-term interest rates continued to fall.

The shares rose 4.6p to 79.6p.