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Bauer Media completes sale to Mercury Capital

Bauer Media’s Australian publishing division is now officially owned by Mercury Capital, with the relevant regulatory authorities providing approval on the sale.

Bauer Media Australia’s staff, print and digital assets and New Zealand mastheads have all now been transferred to Mercury Capital as part of the deal which is rumoured to be worth less than $50m.

Bauer Media’s suite of brands

It was announced in June that Bauer would be selling its assets to the private equity business, but the deal has reportedly been on the table for much longer, pre-dating the sale of Pacific Magazines to Bauer Media earlier this year.

It’s expected that Mercury Capital will resurrect some of the New Zealand titles which were closed earlier this year when Bauer Media decided to leave the market early on in the COVID-19 lockdowns. Mercury Capital is led by New Zealander Clark Perkins and has some prominent business figures from the country on its board.

Before the sale, Bauer Media Australia CEO Brendon Hill said the Australian titles which had been paused during the lockdown would be returned to print for their September issues, but the business also still has a number of staff stood down and retrenched around 150 workers during the Pacific Magazines merger.

In 2012, Australian Consolidated Press (ACP) sold its magazine assets to Bauer Media for $525m, four years after James Packer sold the business, and other media assets, to private equity group CVC Capital for $5.6bn.

Bauer Media acquired Pacific Magazines for $40m.

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