Stephen Davidson, the current executive chairman, will remain at the company as chief executive, the sources told the FT.

Macnamara, a former mergers and acquisitions banker at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Lehman Brothers, will focus on selling Mecom's remaining assets in the Netherlands and Denmark, the report added.

The company has been cutting jobs and costs and selling assets to cope with falling advertising rates across all its markets as the print media industry struggles to hang on to readers in the face of stiff competition from the Internet.

(Reporting by Abhirup Roy in Bangalore)