Guardian Media Group

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Guardian Media Group

Guardian Media Group plc (often referred to as 'GMG') is a company of the United Kingdom owning various mass media operations including The Guardian, The Observer and the Manchester Evening News. The Group is owned by the Scott Trust. It was founded as the Manchester Guardian Ltd in 1907 when C. P. Scott bought the Manchester Guardian from the estate of his cousin Edward Taylor. It became the Manchester Guardian and Evening News Ltd when it bought out the Manchester Evening News in 1924, later becoming the Guardian and Manchester Evening News Ltd to reflect the change in the morning paper's title. It adopted its current name in 1993. Its current chief executive is Carolyn McCall, formerly Chief Executive of Guardian News and Media Limited and a non executive director of Tesco and chair of Opportunity Now.

GMG has five divisions: Guardian News & Media (the Guardian, the Observer, guardian.co.uk); GMG Regional Media (Manchester Evening News, other local newspapers in the North West and South of England, Manchester Online, Channel M); GMG Radio (regional radio stations under the Smooth, Real, Century and Rock Radio brands); Trader Media Group (the Auto Trader magazine and website), which it owns jointly with private equity firm Apax); and GMG Property Services Group (software providers Vebra and Core, and consumer portal ThinkProperty.com).

Guardian Media Group exists to support the core purpose of its owner, the Scott Trust: to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity.^[1]

In March 2007 GMG sold 49.9% of Trader Media Group to Apax Partners, in a deal that valued Trader Media Group at Ł1.35 billion. In December 2007 it was announced that GMG and Apax had made a successful bid to buy Emap's business-to-business arm for around Ł1 billion.^[2] Their main competitor is the Daily Mail and General Trust who have operations all over eastern Europe as well as the UK.