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Allure Media boss pledges to stay independent of new owner Fairfax

The boss of internet group Allure Media has insisted that the organisation will continue to operate independently, despite the acquisition of its parent group by Fairfax Media.

The purchase of Netus signals a significant shift in the local ownership of sites within the technology space. Allure runs the local versions of Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Kotaku along with consumer sites Popsugar, Fabsugar, Bellasugar and Shopstyle.

Allure, which launched six years ago, claims a monthly audience of 2 million Australians.

Parent company Netus was set up by Daniel Petrie and initially financially backed by News Limited. In December, Fairfax Media bought the company for an undisclosed sum believed to be in the tens of millions.

Allure managing director Chris Janz told Mumbrella that the company will operate as usual. He said:

“News Ltd never had a role in the day to day running of the business and neither will Fairfax.

“Our business model works – we started with 5000 UBs for our (three) women’s lifestlye and gossip sites when we began to 750,000 per month now, and we remain one of the fastest growing internet companies in the country.

“And we will continue to grow our audience, which has largely come from the migration of readers from women’s magazines.”

Janz – who would not be drawn on the sale price – said the company, which employs 26 people, had been profitable for five years on the low cost model which sees much of its content licenced from Gawker Media in the US

“We produce great quality products with low costs, and importantly our audience has grown organically and come to our sites without us using traditional marketing strategies,” he said.

“That makes our audience very valuable to advertisers.”

News Limited sold its half share of Sydney-based Netus for $22.3 million in May last year, saying it wanted to explore bigger internet markets.

“We will operate as independently under Fairfax as we did under News Limited,” Janz said.

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