Though Norwegian media have been awash with speculations about who would be Orkla Media's next owner for months, Orkla's chairman Stein Erik Hagen yesterday revealed there was never much choice. In an exclusive interview with Aftenposten, Hagen said:

"It had to be a private equity company or Mecom. I would rather have kept the Norwegian papers and sold the foreign ones, but the employee representatives wanted to keep the newspapers together, so the proposition fell." Hagen admitted to nurturing a rather dismal view of Montgomery before he met the man, but changed his opinion since: "He was the only one who showed any interest in the newspapers. He would sit skipping through the papers up for sale, while the others were just concerned about the money. Montgomery is a real newspaper man." Hagen said the deal would be signed some time around 20 July.