Seven completes mag sale to Bauer Media
Better Homes & Gardens, New Idea part of Seven assets sale as it seeks to drive down debt.
- Published by David Knox
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Seven West Media has completed the sale of Pacific Magazines to Bauer Media for $40 million in cash, as well as $6.6 million in advertising over three years.
The move sees magazines including Better Homes & Gardens, New Idea, Marie Claire, Who, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, InStyle, Girlfriend, That’s Life! and Family Circle all come under the same banner with Woman’s Day, Women’s Weekly, TV Week and more.
The ACCC said the transaction wasn’t likely to substantially lessen competition in a market with falling circulation and a string of hard copy magazine closures.
James Warburton, SWM Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said: “We welcome today’s completion of the sale of Pacific Magazines to Bauer Media. The completion of this transaction is a key step as we work to transform SWM.
“I want to thank all the staff at Pacific for their passion, commitment and tireless work over the years at SWM.”
This week Bauer Media announced 70 staff had been made redundant and several print magazines would temporarily be suspended. The TV Week Logie Awards were also cancelled for 2020. Freelance contributors are also understood to be amongst the casualties.
The sale comes as SWM looks to drive down debt and initiates pay cuts during COVID-19 impact.
In 2012 Nine sold its ACP Magazines division to Bauer Media Group for an estimated $500m – $600m.
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11 Responses
Clever Jamie P did good! His old man would be proud of him.
Nine and Ten went into bankruptcy and had most of the debt written off. They were then reformed, 10 as part of CBS, Nine by global hedge funds as Nine Entertainment which was able to buy Fairfax and get a better deal out of Southern Cross and then sell it off.
Seven managed to carry on and with Stokes avoiding major write downs or restructuring of 7 Group, is holding fire sales to try and pay down the debt it is stuck with.
So did Matt Handbury. Pacific Magazines bought Murdoch Magazines for $77m in 2004. That was for only 3 magazines! Marie Claire, Men’s Health, and Better Homes and Gardens.
So does this mean Better Homes and Gardens moves to Nine next year? ? that’s going to be pretty weird the competition editing the magazine for the show.
Nine has nothing to do with Bauer nor Pacific.
BH&G magazine will continue an affiliation with the TV show on 7.
They could merge Womans Day with BH&G and call it Better Homes & Gossip.
Does anyone know if “TV Week” will be one of the fatalities? I’ve been collecting it since 2000 and have never missed an issue. I also have most issues from 1990 onward. It would be a great shame if it was to be deleted.
TV Week is continuing.
Oh thank God for that. I like TV Week. I don’t really buy it for the TV guide any more since it’s usually wrong but I like the articles & interviews.
Same!