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Local World combines the Northcliffe regional titles with those of Iliffe News & Media and includes Trinity Mirror as an investor.

– including the Hull Daily Mail, Leicester Mercury and Bristol Evening Post – for £52.5m in cash and a 38.7% stake in the new business.

Former Mirror chief executive and executive chairman, David Montgomery, will now take full control of Local World as chief executive with immediate effect.

In a statement, Auckland is said to have joined the leadership of the new company to ensure the effective creation of Local World. It adds: "Now that the executive team has been significantly strengthened in recent months, Steve has decided this is a good time for him to take this step as the business is in good shape."

However, there is widespread speculation today that Auckland’s exit follows a power struggle between Auckland and Montgomery.

In July, two of Auckland’s senior executive directors and former Metro colleagues, Rich Mead and Karen Wall, both left the business.

Auckland said in a statement: "I now leave a business with a great vision and an even more talented team of leaders to deliver it. I always said that people are the most valuable resource to any business.

"We’ve been able to assemble a highly skilled, experienced and motivated team who have outperformed the local media business making Local World even more desirable to investors and employees. It’s been an honour and a pleasure to work with them. With David assembling a new central management team, it’s a great time for me to move on."

Andrew Wilson, chairman said: "We are grateful to Steve for his work through the first months of Local World in guiding a smooth transition of ownership as well as optimising the performance of our operations.

"The Board is encouraged by the performance to date of the new company and is united behind David Montgomery and the executive team in seizing the opportunity for Local World to reinvigorate UK local media with a transformation strategy, underpinned by investment in technology and people."

Local World was born out of a desire for local media to be able to benefit from scale online through closer collaboration. Its local portal websites now claim to have a monthly audience in excess of 10 million unique users and its print platform has over 100 titles, including the Cambridge News, Hull Daily Mail and Leicester Mercury, with a combined weekly reach of 6 million people.

The operaration made a number of roles redundant earlier this year when areas of overlap were identified between the two acquired businesses in the backend and financial requirements.

Future plans for Local World are unclear, but further acquisitions are expected as regional chiefs look for the best way to offset falling circulations and advertising revenues.

Montgomery is a high-profile figure in the newspapers industry. He stepped down as chief executive of pan-European publisher Mecom in 2011.