Ulsterman David Montgomery is trying to put together a bid for Mirror Group - the newspaper group from which he was forced to resign last year after a shareholder revolt - has certainly put the cat among the pigeons. Is Monty about to stage a triumphal return to Canary Wharf?
The market has its doubts and, whatever about having rumoured backing from Wall Street leveraged-buyout specialist, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, most of the betting is still firmly on a successful bid from Trinity International.
Trinity, however, may have to hike up its existing 242 pence a share offer to somewhere over 300 pence if it is to fight off possible counter-bids from a Montgomery-KKR consortium or Regional Independent Media, the Candoverbacked regional newspaper group.
But a combination of Mirror and Trinity would present some competition problems, not least in the North where the merged group would dominate the daily newspaper market, with Trinity already owning the Belfast Telegraph while Mirror owns the News Letter. Only the privately-owned Irish News would then be outside Mirror-Trinity control, a situation that would be untenable.
One of the two daily titles would have to be sold if Trinity does end up buying Mirror, and in such a situation the betting is that it would be the News Letter that would be put on the block. But selling off the News Letter is not a simple matter and political considerations would inevitably come into play with any buyer likely to have to give a commitment to retain the unionist ethos of the paper.
Needless to say, buyers from the Republic need not apply - the hullabaloo that would result if any of the media groups in the Republic bought the title would be enormous. But groups with existing interests in the North, like Scottish Radio Holdings, are likely to be acceptable bidders.
And what about David Montgomery if his bid for Mirror fails to materialise. The unionist-leaning Monty has been linked in the past with buying the News Letter and certainly he would be seen, politically, as an acceptable purchaser. And if Monty has been able to attract the support of KKR for a bid for Mirror, he shouldn't have too much bother in getting financial support for a bid for the News Letter. Whether News Letter staff, well aware of Monty's cost-cutting reputation, would relish having him as a hands-on boss is another matter.
