British media company Reach pulls out of talks to buy JPI titles -FT

Nov 21 (Reuters) - British media company Reach Plc has pulled out of talks to buy hundreds of local newspaper titles from JPI Media, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing two people briefed on the talks.

Newsquest, the publisher behind The Glasgow Herald and a subsidy of U.S. media company Gannett Co Inc, is now the front-runner to buy JPI assets, the newspaper reported https://on.ft.com/2qpX4nP.

The report said the bids had excluded the i, as the national paper is the subject of sale talks with the Daily Mail and General Trust Plc, the owner of the Daily Mail newspaper.

Reach, which publishes the Daily Mirror and was formerly known as Trinity Mirror, had said in July that it was in the early stages of discussions to buy certain assets of JPI.

JPI Media, formerly known as Johnston Press, publishes titles including the Yorkshire Post and the Scotsman. It was bought by its bondholders last year after it filed for bankruptcy protection.

Reach and JPI Media did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular working hours. (Reporting by Anurag Maan and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)