DAILY Echo distributors Dawson Holdings may quit its newspaper delivery business after disclosing heavy losses and contract losses worth £463m.

Already 130 jobs at the company’s Southampton depot were under threat before regional newspaper giant Trinity Mirror terminated its £65m-a-year contract yesterday. In total, the company has seen 67 per cent of its business wiped off the books.

After reporting six month losses of £17.5m, bosses said unless the Government’s competition watchdog intervened they would have “no viable alternative other than to seek to effect an orderly exit from this market”.

Dawson Holdings chairman Nigel Freer said that he did not believe that the distribution division’s fate “could reasonably be forecast”.

“In summary, we have fallen victim to a major restructuring of our industry's supply chain whereby Dawson News, as the smallest of the three major players, has been squeezed out,” he added