Cirrus Media sells all but health and wealth titles as it pursues leaner publishing strategy
Cirrus Media has lost the title of Australia’s largest business to business publisher after selling off all but its healthcare and financial titles to Prime Creative Media.
The company, which was rebranded from Reed Business International two years ago after a takeover by private equity group Catalyst, has sold its industrial, mining, manufacturing and agricultural assets and associated events to the Melbourne based publisher.
The sale of the titles sees Cirrus complete a strategy first floated two years ago by management consultants to focus on its health and wealth titles and growing its event portfolio.
It follows on from Cirrus selling media mag B&T and its travel titles in September last year, Lawyers Weekly last October and directories business HotFrog last February and more recently the sale of Hospitality Magazine to Intermedia Group, and leaves the company with a vastly slimlined portfolio of titles including Australian Doctor, Medical Observer and Money Management.
The sale is effective as of December 1, and includes industry mastheads, events and web assets, including industry directories and the transfer of all existing employees and infrastructure Prime Creative set to keep its new employees in their current Chatswood offices.
“We are taking on all 18 staff that are directly working on these products along with all their entitlements. There are no layoffs or redundancies to speak of in this acquisition that I am aware of,” said Prime Creative Media MD John Murphy.
“All the staff are excited by the fact that a publisher is acquiring this part of the business.”
Prime Media Creative titles include Bean Scene, Global Coffee Report, Prime Mover, Diesel, Which School?, Education Matters and Waste Management Review.
When the divestment strategy was first mooted it was put to one side by former CEO Jeremy Knibbs, before being resurrected under new boss John King. In that time it has also beefed up its content marketing services.
Prime Creative Media chief operating officer Brad Buchanan said in a statement: “Cirrus Media has developed unique capabilities in the delivery of content marketing and lead generation in the B2B publishing sector. We will certainly benefit from this highly-developed skill set and the expertise that has been developed within its talented workforce.
“We have the highest admiration for the team at Cirrus and we now look forward to integrating them into our organisation.”
In May Prime Creative Media bought transportation and infrastructure title Roads and Civil Works magazine after its former publisher Commstrat was placed in voluntary administration in February.
Miranda Ward
What about the architectural publications / websites? Did they get sold or are they still with Cirrus? (Infolink / Architecture and Design.)
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Interesting that the demise of this once huge publisher has been met with a resounding meh………
How many times has private equity f*cked up media investments in this country?
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Private equity should be banned from buying and selling off media in Australia. This is not capitalism, but more akin to the US robber barons in the 1890s. Look at what private equity has done to the once thriving Next Media just as one example. Nope, don’t care about market forces and all that free-wheeling profit crap- all private equity does is asset strip and destroy industries. They should be banned from buying anything bar other private equity firms where they can only destroy each other and good riddance for that!
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@Not an Architect: Infolink/ A&D will be staying at Cirrus, as will the Franchise publication.
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18 Staff…..That’s about 10 Print Mast heads, copious amounts of web sites…. A pretty lean beast…. Back in the day, they had about 100 staff working on the Mast heads and their online entities – and making well over 20 million in sales…
I wish the new owners well on acquiring such a Gem….
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Good luck to them. They’re going to need it!
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They’re left with the healthcare titles, which have always been the most profitable. Unfortunately just about all the previous healthcare journos & sales/marketing staff left or were made redundant after the Cirrus takeover. Institutional memory has gone and likewise most of the knowledge of and engagement with the audience. Cirrus is now really just a startup content marketing operation with some old mastheads.
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Dear Lex,
Institution is about right…
There was very little engagement with the audience in Reeds time – it was all about selling ad space and cutting costs.
No real investment was made in any of the titles, no sizeable acquisitions and growth came about in spite of the Institutionalised management team.
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