Publishers depart Australia’s biggest trade press firm as RBI rebrands to Cirrus Media
New Cirrus logo | Source: B&T
Australia’s biggest trade press publisher has made two of its most senior executives redundant just a month after being sold to a private equity firm.
Among those understood to be leaving the former Australian arm of Reed Business Information are John Nuutinen – group publisher of B&T magazine, Travel Weekly and Lawyers Weekly – and Suzanne Coutinho – publishing director of the company’s flagship title Australian Doctor, Pharmacy News and the Financial Services group of titles.
In total about eight people are understood to have been made redundant.
The company is also to rebrand as Cirrus Media, which is named after the cloud that leads change.
Meanwhile the company’s CEO Jeremy Knibbs, digital executive Ben Sole and HR manager Gloria Madden, have emerged as minority shareholders in the new company, which was acquired private equity firm Catalyst Investment Managers from Reed Elsevier.
When the purchase from Catalyst was announced to staff, Knibbs said the move would create “no shocks or radical changes” with the current management team staying in place.
Meanwhile,the local edition of New Scientist, which was part of RBI Australia prior to the sale but did not move across, has withdrawn from the Audit Bureau of Circulation in Australia (Update: It will now be audited out of the UK.)
Mumbrella understands that Cirrus has also stepped back from its membership of trade body Publishers Australia, although the company is not necessarily intending to cut its links in the long term.
Knibbs was unavailable for comment at the time of posting.
Hi Mumbrella,
Just a quick clarification, New Scientist is still ABC audited. As part of the global New Scientist brand all editions, including the Australasian edition, are audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) UK.
Thanks,
Lucy
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I was always taught that cirrus clouds indicated that the weather was about to deteriorate. They are often associated with cyclones in Australia.
So, New Scientist is running solo in Australia, headed out of the UK? Does Mumbrella have a full insight into what mags and websites are now Cirrus and what remain as RBI? Will be useful to understand what brands have stayed and what have moved etc.
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Appears to already be a few Cirrus Media’s out there:
http://www.cirrusmedia.com/
http://www.cirrus-media.com/
http://www.icirrus.com
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I wonder if http://www.cirrusmedia.com in the states are ok with the rebranding, and also if the technology company cirrus.com.au – are ok!, it’s ok to rebrand, though it’s good to check domains names, and other companies that are in similar space…..
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