Bauer magazines sold to private equity firm

Wednesday, 17 June 2020

Former New Zealand Woman's Weekly editor Kelly Bertrand has gone on to a new venture.

Bauer media’s magazines in New Zealand and Australia have been sold.

Private equity group Mercury Capital had done a deal with the publisher for the business on both sides of the Tasman. Mercury Capital owns Blue Star Group, which includes New Zealand printers Webstar - a printer of a significant number of Bauer titles.

Bauer revealed earlier this year it was closing its New Zealand business and selling off its magazines.

Among those on the block were NZ Woman's Weekly, NEXT, North & South, The Listener, Metro, Taste, FQ, Your Home & Garden, Simply You, Home, Good Health and Wellbeing and the website noted.co.nz.

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Some Bauer magazines will resume production.

About 230 jobs were affected.

Veit Dengler, Bauer Media chief operating officer said: “Bauer Media remains committed to magazine publishing. This decision supports our strategy to invest in our market leading brands where we believe we are best placed to do so.

'We have been proud to be the custodian of these iconic brands in Australia. I would like to thank our talented teams for their commitment and the contribution they have made to Bauer Media. I wish them well for the future.”

The sale is subject to relevant regulatory approvals, with completion expected by the end of July.

It is not yet clear what the sale will mean for New Zealand titles. It had been suggested that the length of time the sale process was taking would put buyers off, as reader loyalty diminished and key staff went on to other roles.

Among them, Virginia Larson and Donna Chisholm, former North and South editor and editor-at-large, are part of new creative collective Design & Type, former NZ Woman’s Weekly deputy editor Kelly Bertrand has founded Capsule, and Simon Farrell-Green, former editor of Home has set up a new magazine, Here.

Duncan Greive, founder of The Spinoff, initially expressed an interest in the titles. He said it was a major problem for the business that there had been no magazines printed in three months.

Readers would have moved into new habits, he said, advertisers would have found other outlets and subscribers would be frustrated by the interruption.

Greive said Mercury may have approached the deal with a view on retaining business for its printing business, which might make it more likely to give priority to the magazines with large and frequent print runs.

If Bauer had folded, or gone to another owner who put the print contracts up for tender, it could have left a hole in the Webstar business, he said.

Webstar faces an increasingly competitive print environment in New Zealand and the deal could shore up support for it.