Trinity Mirror adds £7.5m to fund for its phone hacking bill

TRINITY Mirror has boosted its war chest for phone hacking compensation by £7.5m, warning investors that remaining damages payouts to those targeted by its newspapers will be higher than expected.

The move brings Trinity Mirror’s total phone hacking bill to date to £60m. In a trading update the publisher said it had settled four fifths of claims and that its board, chaired by David Grigson, the former Reuters finance chief, was “confident that the exposures arising from these historical events are manageable”.

Simon Fox, Trinity chief executive, said total like-for-like revenues for the first half of the year are expected to be down 9pc as “volatile” trading and the shift to digital news consumption continues to put pressure on advertising and circulation income. Print advertising fell 21pc while circulation revenues were down 6pc. The struggles in print, which accounts for most of Trinity Mirror’s revenues, were offset slightly by 5pc growth in digital sales. Shares rose 3.4pc to 98¼p.