Deutsche Bank will next week auction its 40% stake in the publisher of Bild, Germany's best selling newspaper, in an effort to recover a loan made to the bankrupt Kirch media empire.
The bank plans to auction its stake in Axel Springer Verlag, which also publishes Die Welt, at a Munich hotel next Wednesday.
The bank took possession of the shares last month after a Munich court ruled out giving company founder Leo Kirch more time to find a buyer as administrators try to pay back the debts that drove the group into bankruptcy earlier this year.
Kirch had originally offered the Springer stake to Deutsche Bank as security against a loan of £452m that it couldn't pay back on time.
The sale of Kirch Group's assets, which also include a pay television channel, sporting and film rights and a controlling stake in Germany's second largest broadcaster, has raised the prospect of a shake-up of Germany's staid media landscape.
Conservative politicians have expressed alarm that rival German publisher WAZ, seen as close to chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, could gain a foothold at Hamburg-based Springer.
Springer has a veto on whom the shares are sold to. The company is believed to have discussed a deal to join forces with Swiss publisher Ringier to bid for the 40% stake and prevent them falling into the hands of a rival.
Schroeder allies, meanwhile, have set themselves against any takeover of ProSiebenSat.1, which has four national TV channels, by the media companies of Italy's conservative prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is seen as a potential bidder for Kirch's Premiere pay TV channel.
Four separate groups are understood to be in the running to buy the television and film library units of the bankrupt company, while KirchSport, the home of the World Cup and German Bundesliga rights, may now be sold off separately.
Kirch today also reorganised the ownership structure of internet group Kirch Intermedia, rolling it into television unit ProSiebenSat.1.
