Will a buyer consolidate or disband Mirror Group?(Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd.)

Following last week's departure of Mirror Group's chief executive, David Montgomery, it seems certain that the group will now be sold. And there is also a growing belief in the industry that it will ultimately be broken up. Would that be good news for the flagship tabloids?

What now for Mirror Group, now that Monty's gone? I Some say the answer is simple: health, wealth and happiness all round. David Montgomery, who resigned as Mirror Group's chief executive last week, had many detractors. And the ones with the greatest combination of motive and opportunity -- disgruntled ex-Mirror and Independent journalists -- managed to portray him as an arch Dickensian villain: a soul-less, humourless tyrant who took a more than natural delight in penny-pinching. Things, as someone once said, can only get better.

There's another side, of course. Detractors remember only that Mirror Group's previous proprietor, Robert Maxwell, went for an …