BANGOR-BORN David Montgomery is to announce the sale of his German newspaper group this morning in an effort to save his heavily indebted Mecom investment group.

The sale for a reported €152 million ends an unhappy three-year tenure as owner of the Berliner Zeitung, Berliner Kurierand Hamburger Abendblattnewspapers as well as other titles.

Drastic cost-cutting, minimum investment and job losses created a mutinous atmosphere among the newpapers’ staff in Germany, resulting in weaker editorial content and a corresponding freefall in sales.

Buyer DuMont Schauberg, which is expected to sign the sales contract today, owns the Frankfurter Rundschaudaily and several Cologne titles.

The German sale is unlikely to be the last: Montgomery badly needs money to save his Mecom group, which has debts of £587 million.

Creditors have given him until the end of February to refinance the group.

The looming deadline could mean the end of the former Mirror Group chief’s debt-fuelled media spending spree that saw him take control of about 300 titles around Europe from Norway to Poland.

Dwindling investor confidence in Mecom’s long-term viability saw the company’s shares plunge 98.48 per cent in value last year.

Germany’s Axel Springer newspaper group has expressed interest in purchasing Mecom’s 51 per cent stake of leading Polish broadsheet Rzeczpospolita.