Leader newspaper publishers NWN Mold HQ up for sale

Billion pound mega corp Gannett (publishers of USA Today et al) will be moving their Newsquest NWN subsidiary from their flagship offices, as the old owners of the Leader newspaper have stuck their office up for sale.

The new sign outside the office states the site is for sale, whereas the listing on BACommercial.com states it is available to lease for £150,000 a year.

The particulars read: “The property comprises a purpose built former Headquarters premises for NWN Media Limited, the building understood to have been constructed in the early to mid 1980’s. The overall site is self-contained, and extends to approximately 3.0 acres.”

The Mold office was retained by the old ‘family owned’ owners of NWN Media when Newsquest purchased the newspaper group last year.

Accounts lodged up to March 2017, apparently prior to the sale to Newsquest, state that the net worth of NWN had reduced by £4m due to a dividend in specie to the parent company of NWN – a relatively new company called Mojo Holdings.

As we wrote at the time, such a move was not a surprise as the Leader published themselves how MOJO intended to ‘leverage property holdings‘.

As well as the huge sign outside, the news that the office building is for sale / to lease will not come as a surprise to staff with it appearing to be common knowledge over the last six months that NWN would be moving out at some point.

Although nothing has been confirmed, it is rumoured office space on Wrexham Technology Park could be taken up to relocate staff.

NWN staff awareness contrasts to Trinity Mirror’s (now ‘Reach PLC’) treatment of staff who first found out their Llandudno Junction office was closing via a Lidl Supermarket press release last year – a release we are told reporters were banned from reporting on.

Thanks to a Wrexham.com reader for the top image.