MECOM, the publishing group headed by David Montgomery, is plotting a bid for the publisher of Germany’s biggest broadsheet newspaper.

The former chief executive of the Mirror group is planning to bid for a 62% stake in Sueddeutscher Verlag, the Stuttgart group that publishes Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest broadsheet daily, in a deal that would value the newspaper group at more than €1 billion (£695m).

Credit Suisse, the investment bank, has been appointed to sell the group.

Private-equity groups, including Apax, Providence and 3i, are also lining up potential offers. First-round bids are expected to be made by the end of this month.

Montgomery, 58, who is thought to have appointed Rothschild to advise him on the deal, recently paid €163m for 75% of the publisher of the Berliner Zeitung, one of Germany’s leading left-wing newspapers.

Montgomery started Mecom in 2000, and in the past two years has embarked on an aggressive expansion plan across northern Europe.

With a mission to consolidate the sector dominated by often inefficient and family-run businesses, he now owns more than 100 titles in Denmark, Norway, Poland, the Netherlands and Germany and publishes 18m copies a week.

Mecom is also in the process of buying out a Dutch publisher, Wegener, where it has gradually built a 58% stake; 75% will give Mecom operational control.

Last month Mecom’s shares fell 8% and on Friday they closed at 79½p, down from a high of 97p in July.

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