MEDIA FORUM: Can Trinity Mirror become a major-league player?

Could a new chief executive turn things around at Trinity Mirror or is a splitting up of the group's components the solution? Alasdair Reid asks.

The business editors of the Sunday newspapers were in a generous mood at the weekend in their coverage of Trinity Mirror. Although there was a lot of fairly scathing stuff, the knives are not yet out. Which is more than fair - because if half the stories emerging from Canary Wharf are true (and in classic Mirror Group tradition some of its executives have been breathtakingly candid over the past week or so) then this could be a story with a very messy ending.

Plus ca change. The Mirror Group (as was) has been a troubled organisation on and off for almost two decades now - in fact, ever since the gargantuan shadow of Robert Maxwell first darkened its door in June 1984. Since Maxwell floated off into the sunset in 1991, we've been invited to witness a handful of new dawns, most of them awkward, some of them painful - remember, for instance, the austere kill or cure approach taken by David Montgomery?

In that context, the merger of Mirror Group with the regional publisher Trinity back in 1999 seemed one of the happier occasions.

Now, with the announcement that Philip Graf, the chief executive of the group since the merger, plans to depart next summer, there is fresh scope for doubt. Graf indicated that, having spent almost ten years in charge (he was the boss of Trinity before the merger), he had become rather attached to the top job. But he added: 'I feel however that the foundations we have laid have created a strong platform for growth and I feel that this period of notice will enable an orderly succession to take place. In the meantime, I shall continue enthusiastically to lead the team during what will be a year of considerable progress for the business.'

Few in the marketplace took that at face value. Was he pushed, they asked, confident that they knew the answer. And what was all this flannel about 'foundations' and a 'platform for growth'? The influential US fund manager Tweed Brown, which holds 5.6 per cent of Trinity Mirror equity, wasn't at all convinced, calling immediately for the company to be broken up - or at the very least demerged into its two component parts.

Beyond Graf's statement Trinity Mirror declined to talk to Campaign about the implications of his departure. However, some analysts point out that the company is currently valued at the same level as the regional-only Johnston Press - which means effectively that Trinity Mirror's national titles are accorded no value at all. A demerger would therefore realise that latent value. In theory.