Trinity Mirror announces Sly Bailey to step down

Trinity Mirror has announced that Sly Bailey is to step down as chief executive. She has today given the Board her notice and is expected to leave at the end of the year.

By December she will have served almost 10 years with the company. Trinity  says it will publicly start the search for her successor.

Bailey said in a statement: "For the past ten years I have had the privilege of being CEO of Trinity Mirror Plc, a fascinating and all consuming role. Newspapers are a business like no other.

"Now I feel the time has come to hand over to someone else to take up the challenge and for me to seek new challenges and opportunities elsewhere."

Bailey had come under fire for the size of her pay packet and benefits, with the NUJ campaigning for them to be reduced at a time when editorial staff and budgets were being cut.

The NUJ had claimed Bailey earned a base salary of £750,000 and a short-term cash bonus worth a further 30 per cent of salary, with her pension contributions totalling another £248,000. She also received 503,000 shares worth an extra £396,000 which vest in 2014, and could earn a further 762,000 shares by 2014, the union said.

Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: “What exactly is Trinity Mirror rewarding Sly Bailey for? Her record speaks for itself. The NUJ has long been calling for the newspaper group to invest in its staff and quality journalism, not lining the pockets of management. This is not the politics of envy; this is saying that if Trinity Mirror is to succeed and survive, then it needs to be spending the money on its staff and titles.”