A bidding war for a merger with the Mirror Group is expected to fire up following the resignation yesterday of chief executive, David Montgomery (see Possibilities For Mirror Group).
One potential bidder, Trinity International, has said that it is waiting ‘for the dust to settle’ after the boardroom wrangles which dogged the Mirror Group in recent weeks. It is then expected that Trinity will make an offer to rival the £913 million bid from Regional Independent Media (RIM) (see Mirror Group Rejects £913m RIM Bid). This would be the first formal bid from Trinity so far in the negotiations. Montgomery was seen by Trinity as the major obstacle to the agreement of a merger and the newspaper group is expected to act now that he has stepped down.
Reports today also suggest that the Barclay brothers may be interested in the Mirror’s national titles, the Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People. There was speculation in summer last year that David and Frederick Barclay were interested in buying the Mirror’s Scottish titles, the Daily Record and Sunday Mail, although nothing came of this (see Barclay Brothers Show Interest In Mirror Titles).
Both Trinity and RIM are regional newspaper publishers and may not be interested in retaining the company’s national newspapers should a takeover be completed. This could see the national titles being sold off either separately or as a group.
At 11:51 this morning, Mirror Group’s shares stood at 209p, 5p above yesterday’s closing price.
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