Ten months on, Trinity Mirror’s disposal plans have ended with a whimper, not a bang.

Not that the stockmarket was surprised by the outcome to retain the Midlands and remaining regional titles in the south. Shares in the FTSE 250 newspaper publisher barely moved this morning.

Sly Bailey, chief executive, cannot be faulted for deciding not to sell given credit market turmoil which has hobbled private equity bidders. But she now has the problem of reinvigorating morale. In forming a management buy-out team for the Midlands titles, senior executives in Birmingham showed a clear appetite for life outside the Trinity stable. Now that prospect has receded, the task of returning their attention to turning round what remains the worst performing part of the group will be hard.

But disposal was never going to be the answer to strategic Trinity’s problems: a lack of exposure to faster growing online assets. And in offloading Racing Post, Trinity has sold its best business.

At 412p, the shares sit 18 per cent below their level when this process began. But even at 9.2 times next year’s earnings, Trinity is still not obviously cheap given a consumer economy that is likely to get tougher over the next few months.

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