Newsquest Media executives are due in Glasgow this week to meet Herald and Evening Times staff for the first time since the company clinched a pre-Christmas £216m deal for the SMG titles.
Chairman Paul Davidson, US company Gannett’s top man in the UK, will return to his home city to the Renfield Street headquarters of the papers. They are likely to be Newsquest’s by 1 April, if the Competition Commission and the Department of Trade and Industry approve the deal.
Davidson, also chief executive of Newsquest Media, told the Scottish staff after the deal was clinched on 23 December: "We look forward to meeting our new colleagues to further develop these excellent titles."
The Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times will remain in their HQ as Newsquest will take over the lease.
There will be some unwinding to be done of parts of the papers entwined with SMG, such as the payroll, and SMG will put in £10m to help fill a pension fund deficit for the newspapers’ employees.
Andrew Neil, publisher of The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening Times, has signed a new three-year contract with Press Holdings, the Barclay brothers’ firm that manages Scotsman Publications.
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