Taylor leaves Sunday Business Post after decade as editor

The editor of the Sunday Business Post, Cliff Taylor, is stepping down after 10 years in the role.

Political journalist Pat Leahy, the deputy editor of the newspaper, has been appointed acting editor with immediate effect, the company said.

Mr Taylor said he had decided it was "time to move on", one year after Post Publications Limited was rescued from examinership by private equity house Key Capital and newspaper investor Paul Cooke.

“I was very keen to see the paper through the examinership as it was a very difficult period for the newspaper,” Mr Taylor said this evening.

“There is never a perfect time to move on, but it seems to be an appropriate time,” he said. He added that had no immediate plans.

Mr Taylor, who is a former economics editor and managing editor of The Irish Times, cited the move by the Sunday Business Post's former owners, the now-defunct Thomas Crosbie Holdings, to place the newspaper in examinership last March as the lowlight of his tenure.

But he said it was "the strength of the brand" that had attracted investment and allowed the newspaper to continue. He described it as a "privilege" to edit the newspaper, which was founded in 1989 by journalists Frank Fitzgibbon, Aileen O'Toole, Damien Kiberd and James Morrissey.

Mr Taylor said covering the fallout from Ireland's financial crisis had been an "extraordinary, interesting and challenging period for anyone involved in financial journalism" and that he believed the Sunday Business Post had made a contribution to the debate.

Mr Cooke, who is chief executive of Post Publications Limited, said this Sunday’s edition would be edited by Mr Leahy, but that Mr Taylor would remain at the company in an advisory capacity until an official departure date at the end of August.

The position of editor of "Ireland's financial, political and economic newspaper" will be advertised shortly, Mr Cooke added. "We are looking for someone equally as excellent," he told The Irish Times.

In a statement, Mr Cooke also thanked Mr Taylor for his 10-year service on behalf of the board of the company, as well as for the commitment and support he had given him personally over the past year.

The next editor will inherit a newspaper that had a print circulation of 34,322 in the second half of 2013 - a figure that was almost 13 per cent lower than its sales in the second half of 2012.

The company, which endured a number of redundancies last year as the new owners sought to cut operating costs, has been attempting to both stem the circulation decline and build its digital revenues.