David Montgomery's potential new ally as he seeks to buy The Telegraph

David Montgomery is no stranger to audacious acquisitions and boardroom fights. But the pugnacious newspaper baron enters 2025 with quite a battle on his hands. At 76, he faces losing control of his National World local newspaper group, whose heritage titles include The Scotsman and The Yorkshire Post. In November, Montgomery managed to rebuff a “shock” takeover move from the group’s largest shareholder, Ireland’s Media Concierge, says The Telegraph. But after the offer was increased to £62 million, the National World board has indicated it is minded to accept. It seems “Monty” has met his match in Malcolm Denmark, who has built Media Concierge into the largest regional newspaper publisher in Ireland. It could mark “the end of the road for one of Britain’s most notorious proprietors”.

David Montgomery's potential new ally for The Telegraph bid

That might be a case of wishful thinking for Telegraph hacks. After all, Montgomery – nicknamed “Rommel” by journalists when he ran the Mirror Group in the 1990s (because “at least Monty was on our side”) – remains a key contender in the battle for their own titles. His chances of acquiring the Telegraph Media Group were thought to have been scuppered when the owner of The New York Sun, Dovid Efune, entered “exclusive” talks in the autumn, says The Sunday Times. But Efune’s failure to secure funding has thrown the game wide open again. And now Montgomery has a potential new ally in the form of a “surprise late entrant” to the race: Chelsea FC’s owner Todd Boehly. What a “spectacular turn of events” it would be if he can pull off a deal.

Montgomery has long claimed to be the “best-qualified” candidate to buy The Telegraph, says Press Gazette. Given his reputation for ruthless cost-cutting, that’s up for debate. But unlike many of his fellow media moguls, the dour Ulsterman is a newspaperman through and through. Born in Bangor, Northern Ireland, in 1948, to an electricity company clerk, Montgomery attended the local grammar school and went on to read politics and history at Queen’s University Belfast, noted a 1999 Guardian profile. “Remembered for wearing a suit and tie, while his peers sported T-shirts and jeans,” he edited the student newspaper, but “stood aside” from the Troubles then breaking out. Montgomery joined the Mirror Group and was posted as a sub-editor to Manchester where he was dubbed the “cabin boy” for the way he hovered outside the editor’s office. Moving to London in 1973, he spent “seven years toiling on the subs desk” before jumping ship to The Sun, where his rise began in earnest. Montgomery became editor of the News of the World and Today before being parachuted back to run the Mirror Group after Robert Maxwell’s death in 1991.

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Montgomery ran the Mirror Group “with an iron hand”, but “bad decisions and a misplaced belief in his own infallibility” led to his downfall. Ousted in 1999, he bounced back “with a bold plan” to jive up “Europe’s sleepy newspapers”, says The Times. His acquisition vehicle, Mecom, snapped up titles in Germany, Norway, Poland, the Netherlands and Denmark, and by 2007 had grown into Europe’s second-biggest newspaper group with a stock market value of £1.2 billion. But the company was felled by the 2008 financial crisis and Montgomery was again forced out.

Montgomery’s most recent power play, in local UK newspapers, has proved an equally mixed bag, says The Telegraph. “Despite his best efforts, local journalism has continued in its inexorable decline” and National World remains a comparative “minnow”. But over six decades, he has acquired a fearsome reputation as a stayer. “As bleak as his future looks just now… we cannot yet” write him off, concluded veteran journalist Roy Greenslade in 1999. The same still holds true.

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