Former Domain boss Antony Catalano and Thorney Investment Group reach deal for Canberra Times, Newcastle Herald and others to change hands

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Nine Entertainment has sold 160 former Fairfax regional papers, including the Canberra Times and the Illawarra Mercury, to the former Domain boss Antony Catalano and investors for $115m.

The chief executive officer of Nine, Hugh Marks, said the sale of its Australian Community Media & Printing business, which includes the Newcastle Herald, the Land and Queensland Country Life, would be complete by the end of June.

The group of newspapers has been bought by a company controlled by interests associated with Catalano and Thorney Investment Group, and some commercial arrangements including printing and advertising will remain in place.

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Some of Nine’s metropolitan mastheads such as the Sydney Morning Herald are printed by ACM in regional areas and that arrangement will continue.

“The sale of ACM is aligned with our strategy to exit non-core businesses and to focus on Nine’s portfolio of high-growth, digital assets,” Marks said.

“We will retain a commercial relationship with ACM and look forward to continuing to work with the business in areas where there are mutual benefits to both Nine and ACM.”

Only six months ago Catalano, who used to run Fairfax’s successful real estate platform Domain, failed in a bid to block the sale of Fairfax to Nine by buying up to 19.9% of Fairfax. The deal includes $10m worth of advertising for Nine in ACM properties over the next three years.

The ACM group of newspapers was once owned by Rural Press but was sold to the former Fairfax Media in 2007 in a $3bn deal which included 200 publications in Australia and New Zealand, 23 publications in the USA and 11 radio stations.

Marks flagged selling off the community papers soon after the merger with Fairfax last year.

Nine is still in the market to sell the two other former Fairfax properties it no longer wants – Stuff and Events.

Marks told staff that Catalano and the Thorney Investment Group saw the “future potential” of the newspapers, which no longer fitted into Nine’s national advertising strategy.

“They are well positioned to realise that future in a way that Nine as a public company would have limitations of doing,” Marks said.

“I believe the change of ownership is positive and sets the business well on the path for the future.”

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance media director Katelin McInerney called on Catalano and Thorney to maintain job security, award conditions and editorial independence.

“There are about 650 editorial staff employed across the country by the ACM group,” McInerney said. “It is essential that the individual audiences for each of the group’s mastheads be respected.

“The ACM mastheads are supported by fiercely loyal readers. The newspapers must continue to provide local news, information and entertainment to the communities they serve. Their readers are entitled to have local editorial content, not homogenised news generated from somewhere else.”