The Daily Mail and General Trust has been named as one of the worst companies in the UK for paying invoices on time – with contributors waiting an average of 10 weeks to receive their money.
A new study has ranked the Daily Mail and Evening Standard publisher as the nineth worst FTSE 250 company – and the worst media company – in a league table naming and shaming late payers.
The report by the Credit Management Research Centre at Leeds University found that the average invoice to a publicly quoted company takes 44 days to be paid.
DMGT – which owns regional newspaper publisher Northcliffe and nationals division Associated – took 68 days to pay its suppliers, according to the report.
The best media companies for prompt payment were Reuters – which generally paid up within 13 days – and Emap, which cleared payments in 11 days.
Under European late payment law, freelance journalists are eligible to compensation and interest on invoices not paid after 30 days, unless alternative payment terms are agreed beforehand.
Trinity Mirror and Financial Times publisher Pearson typically paid after 31 days, the report found.
The study, due to be published in full on Thursday, is based on the annual reports of every publicly listed company in the UK.
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