JPIMedia


JPIMedia Ltd is a multimedia company founded in 2018 that took over the assets of Johnston Press following the sale of the company to its creditors.
Its flagship titles include The Scotsman, the Yorkshire Post, the Falkirk Herald and Belfast's The News Letter. The company operates around 200 newspapers and associated websites around the United Kingdom.

Formation

On 17 November 2018, a spokesperson for Johnston Press announced that all its titles had been transferred to the control of JPIMedia, a special purpose vehicle, owned by the creditors. Under the terms of the pre-packaged deal, ownership passed to a consortium of four lenders – CarVal, Fidelity, Benefit Street Partners and Goldentree Asset Management – who reduced its debts to £85 million and injected £35 million investment. This however was subject to criticism by Johnston Press's largest shareholder, described as a "blatant pre-planned corporate theft by bondholders", and was raised in Parliament.

2019 asset sales

It was reported in May 2019, that a group of bondholders led by GoldenTree Asset Management has appointed bankers at Stella EOC to lay the groundwork for a potential sale of part, or all, of the business.
In July 2019, it was confirmed that a sale process of JPIMedia was taking place.
Reach plc were said to be "early stages" of talks to buy "certain assets" from JPI Media. In November 2019, it was announced that the i had been sold to Daily Mail and General Trust.
In February 2020, it was announced that JPIMedia are no longer exploring a sale of their assets excluding the sale of the i which is subject to regulatory approval.

Operations

Newspapers in Great Britain

The following is a partial list of British newspapers owned by the company:
JPIMedia publishes a total of 22 titles in Northern Ireland through two holding companies, JPIMedia NI and Derry Journal Newspapers. The geographic readership of some titles extends across the Irish border into the Republic of Ireland, such as the Derry Journal which also covers County Donegal. Former JPIMedia titles published in the Republic of Ireland now belong to Iconic Newspapers.

Johnston Publishing (NI)

Daily
Local (Derry Journal)
The company owns the following websites, in addition to newspaper sites as above, and regionalised versions of these: