Newspaper Publishing, the British newspaper group in which Independent Newspapers has a 46 per cent stake, had losses last year of £15 million sterling, bringing its total losses since its formation in 1986 to almost £100 million.

Higher cover prices and lower staffing meant that the loss was £5 million lower than in 1995, but the deficit left the company with debts of £31 million, more than £6 million of which must be repaid at the beginning of October, according to accounts filed in London.

Newspaper Publishing directors have promised that backing from the two major shareholders - Independent and Mirror Group - means that there will be sufficient funds to trade for at least another year. Share issues during the year helped to reduce debts by £6 million.

Auditors Price Waterhouse have drawn attention to the "fundamental uncertainty" of the company's financial position, but said that the accounts could be presented on a "going concern" basis.

Total sales grew by 13 per cent to £66 million, reflecting higher advertising income and cover price increases during 1996. These offset falling circulation at both the daily Independent and the Independent on Sunday.

Higher sales enabled the company to make a small gross profit but operating expenses rose by more than half. Staff costs fell by £1 million after a cut in editorial number of 62. Spending on marketing rose by nearly 40 per cent, while administrative costs shot up by almost 80 per cent to nearly 66 million despite promised savings from the move to the Mirror Group offices in Canary Wharf.

In the first half of this year, sales of the daily Independent plummeted by 8 per cent to just over 257,000 copies a day, down from over 279,000 in the first half of 1995. This came against a background of higher sales at the newspaper's main broadsheet competitors, with the Financial Times and the Guardian also reporting higher audited sales.