The ailing European newspaper will close next month after failing
to find a buyer. The final issue will be published on 14 December.
The newspaper’s owners, the Barclay brothers, told staff in September
that if they could not agree the sale of the paper within 90 days they
would be forced to close it.
An estimated pounds 50 million has been ploughed into the title since
the brothers bought it out of administrative receivership in January
1992. Despite many redesigns, the newspaper sank from its original
circulation figure of 226,099 in 1990 to 133,000 in the second half of
1997.
Bert Hardy, chief executive of the European and the Sunday Business,
said: ’We gave our staff three months’ notice that we would close at the
end of the year. We haven’t found a buyer and so our decision to close
remains.’
The financial information company, Bloomberg, was investigating a joint
venture with the European and there was also speculation that the
newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Andrew Neil, was looking to lead a
buyout.
The Barclays’ newspaper group, European Press Holdings, will now focus
its attention on the rest of its portfolio which includes the Sunday
Business, the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday.
The Sunday Business registered its first ABC figure in October, which
revealed a circulation of 50,150. Hardy said: ’We are on our way to our
target and we have only been going for 40 issues.’
