Domain 2.0 isn’t my plan, claims Antony Catalano
The new owner of Nine’s regional newspapers and former CEO of Domain, Antony Catalano, has denied suggestions he’s building a real estate roll-up to take on his former employer.
Catalano has already taken a stake in Domain’s biggest client, media agency Tomorrow, and yesterday, he purchased 160-plus regional mastheads which Nine inherited as part of the Fairfax deal. Sources have speculated to Mumbrella this is part of a wider play for Catalano, who could roll-up the interests and assets to launch a real estate portal to take on Domain, which is majority owned by Nine.
Catalano: ‘Why would I have my own real estate play?’
He told Mumbrella, however, that suggestions he has eyes on another real estate portal are unsubstantiated, and insisted he wants to continue to work with Domain, and its majority owner, Nine.
“Why would I have my own real estate play when I’ve got a clearly defined partnership which includes promotion with the Nine Network for the next three years?,” he said.
“It’s ill-informed speculation without understanding. We’ve clearly done a deal [with Nine]. We clearly want to work together,” he said, noting it would work against him to go up against Nine and Domain.
“The speculation doesn’t have any basis. It’s actually completely contrary to what’s in front of you.”
Catalano did, however, concede that back in his Fairfax days, he had visions of such a roll-up.
“I actually thought at one time that Fairfax should actually buy advertising agencies in the real estate space [to] close the loop. Then you could independently advise your clients – imagine if Fairfax or Domain could have owned Tomorrow [the media agency Catalano has a stake in], but also sent money to REA [Domain’s rival]? You’re in the group, you’re in the network, you nurture the circle of interest in the category,” he told Mumbrella.
Mumbrella understands that the deal does include significant property assets.
After news of the sale emerged, Mumbrella was also contacted by a disgruntled Cristian King, who claimed to have been interested in purchasing the regional assets from Nine for around $92m – below that of Catalano and Thorney Investment’s $115m. It is not clear how King, the 24-year-old publisher of Latte Life, would have funded his proposal.
King, who conceded he “came in a couple of weeks late” with his offer, said he hopes Catalano doesn’t “continue with the failed Fairfax strategy of sacking to prosperity”.
Catalano was unaware of King’s involvement in the bidding process, but said he’s an investor at heart, and wanted to grow the company.
“I started MMP [Metro Media Publishing], which started with five people and grew to 320 people when we merged with Fairfax, and so cutting wasn’t in my DNA, investing is,” he said.
He noted he’d been involved in the float of businesses and grew Domain from 175 staff to 800 staff, and said he always has a clear investment strategy for viable business assets.
Catalano is quoted to say that with the property and the expected profit that he gets his money back in the first year. In which case Nine is either pathetically stupid or expects that the liabilities (large redundancy cost and losses inherent in failing print product) are so great that they just wanted to quit as fast as possible.
Catalano gets three very solid assets in the Newcastle, Albury and agricultural titles. He will have to undo the terms of the Domain deal, which is possible.
The huge challenge for someone who has largely built business on leveraging the real estate agent dollar, Catalano will have to work on some other skills.
Either that he will need to act fast in asset stripping. My bet is that this ends in tears for most stakeholders and controversy for the two investors.
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Good on him!
Everybody questions his integrity, ethics, etc….
The reality is, the man knows how to operate in the print / online classifieds game and have fun while doing so.
As for this disgruntled Cristian King guy… boo hoo!
Even if you had your finger on the pulse, guess what…he still would have outbid you!
Looking forward to the Cats next move.
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Catalano has the ability to build those mastheads and it’s in his interests to do so. Ballsy move for 24 year old King to bid $92mil, good on him for having a go.
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At least ACM didn’t sell to a developer, hopefully there won’t be mass redundancies.
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Its not to ballsy a manoeuvre when you are a little Cranbrook boy that has mummy’s money to play with.
Glad he didn’t get it, Catalano has the right level of experience to grow those mastheads, “King Media” would have run them into the ground.
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Alex W is the fool. You saying The Land newspaper is going to be a growth business?
Catalano and his crew paid way too much so Da Cat can be someone in the media again.
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Mephistopheles is a terrific handle for anything related to Catalano
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Not convinced The Cat will retain the smaller regionals and rurals. Everything he’s said so far is motherhood and vague. King Media would have at least broken the Fairfax (aka Fairfu..ks) lineage and enabled a fresh approach from a new (and demonstrably) viable player.
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I can’t imagine his plan is to grow these mastheads. Most are scratching to survive now – let alone in the tough times ahead. I would suspect a number will quickly come onto the market. A small publisher like the kings do know how to survive in regional markets and how to delegate. I imagine a lot of these provincial newspapers would have benefitted from their current model which is working. Nine is out because it is just too hard to make such diverse publications spread all over the country work. A smaller operator with the right model and a love for print would certainly have been a better choice. Regional newspapers are a vital cog in small communities – it will be a sad day to see them either disappear or be amalgamated.
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I spoke to Cristian King just this morning about a matter unconnected to the Fairfax title’s bid and he said it was Mumbrella that contacted him and he hardly sounded “disgruntled” ( an obvious personal insult intended to put someone down) rather disappointed he missed out on the bid as presumably did others who wished to takeover Nine’s former Fairfax titles.
If Mumbrella is going to distort news & use personal language designed to insult or belittle just as we have to put up with in the News Corp dominated outlets and Australia’s shrinking media ownership what is the point of it?
This may seem a minor matter but it goes to the question of all “reporting” on Mumbrella: is it truly independent or is willing to kowtow to the most powerful?
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Hi Sam B.
This is not correct. Please don’t add untruths to a story when you’re crusading for factual and balanced reporting.
I did not contact Cristian. I did not know he was in the mix as a potential bidder, so would not have known to contact him. I didn’t even have Cristian’s number until he called me.
I don’t agree that “disgruntled” is insulting. It’s not a reference to his character at all. It’s a state of mind after an unsuccessful attempted business venture. Cristian has just called me again to clarify, and said he is “disappointed”. Perhaps that would sit better with you?
As to this being indicative of us being “kowtow”, I can’t see how the two are connected? This article is not an endorsement of Catalano, his bid, or his intentions. It’s just a report of what he told me after winning the business.
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Catalano is @mephistophele.
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So rumour has it Catalano and his Domain team pitched to Greg Hywood to build ‘Fairfax 2.0’ a number of times.
Domain, Metro mastheads and Stan into next generation media business.
Hywood sold Fairfax to Nine, killing the Fairfax name. Nine promptly began shedding everything but (wait for it) Domain, Metro mastheads and Stan.
No-one should underestimate Antony. He believes in consumers, customers, audiences and marketing and is crazy enough to somehow make regionals succeed.
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Well good for you responding and that’s a good sign.
I’m not going to get into a wrangle about words and their meanings although the dictionary meaning of “disgruntled” is “angry & disappointed”. It’s a term used .. let’s say when an employee gets the sack rightly or wrongly and makes a claim and the employer responds (often in the media in high profile cases) to dismiss the matter as a “disgruntled employee” and we all know the use of the word implies that the ex-employee has no case and is just angry.
As a journalist you must know the importance of how words craft a story and can lead a reader to think a certain way.
The reason I posted is that having done business with King Media and Cristian King now for about 5 years he does not come across as a person who would be “disgruntled” about much, rather someone who at a pretty young age has forged a small media group that keeps expanding and has survived in a notoriously hard industry and has a pretty optimistic outlook despite the odds. It’s something I reckon should be encouraged in a country with a shockingly partisan and dwindling monopolistic media industry.
And what on earth is Silver Spoon on about with the attempted Cranbrook snide remark?. Has Mr/Ms Spoon bothered looking at the history of the handful of Australia’s media barons and where they sent their off-spring, most who now control our media, for their education?.
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You’re really playing this machiavellian angle aren’t you…
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Warren Buffett bought up a number of regional newspapers in the US
I don’t think what Catalano is doing is a bad idea either.
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Ludicrous to think Hywood and FFX would ever allow Catalano to run anything other than real estate classifieds.
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Already our Kitty Cat is backing away – he doesn’t have any form of a meaningful plan. He loves a deal but always fails to execute. We hear nine are laughing their Heads off and rightfully so.
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Too much devils dandruff.
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