Seven West Media in talks to sell Pacific Magazines to Bauer Media
Two of Australia’s largest magazine publishers could be set to become one operation, with Seven West Media in talks to sell its Pacific Magazines operations to German-owned Bauer Media.
Sources within Bauer Media told Mumbrella the deal was “imminent”, and had been spruiked as such for weeks, however others said the details were still being ironed out.
Bauer has closed a number of mags in recent years
Seven’s Pacific Magazines is currently led by CEO Gereurd Roberts, and includes titles such as Marie Claire, Better Homes and Gardens, and New Idea.
Under Seven West Media’s new structure – announced last week by new CEO James Warburton – Pacific Magazines (should it remain where it is) would report into an as-yet-unnamed chief digital officer.
Bauer Media publishes magazines such as Take 5, TV Week and The Australian Women’s Weekly.
One source close to Bauer Media, who requested anonymity, said should the deal be successful, the new business would be sold to private equity as Bauer is keen to exit from Australia.
Bauer declined to comment.
Mumbrella understands the two publishers have reached this cross-roads before, but the price has, as yet, not been right.
Warburton took over as CEO of SWM just two months ago, and made it clear nothing was on or off the table in terms of mergers, acquisitions and sales.
Warburton joined Seven in July, taking over from long-time CEO Tim Worner
When the company posted a $444.4m loss to the ASX just days into Warburton’s occupation of the top role, he said: ““We will be a hunter and explore M&A [merger and acquisition] opportunities in both traditional media and non-traditional adjacencies that are positive for our shareholders.”
The speculation comes ahead of Seven’s upfronts – where it reveals its content and digital plans for calendar year 2020- on 23 October.
All the mags in one spot! Wow!
Bauer should change their name to Mag World. That will be good.
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What a coincidence that these talks are concluding only a couple of weeks after Pacific Mags cut most people’s redundancy entitlement. Is it even legal to do that if you know a sale (and therefore undoubtedly redundancies) is imminent?
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Surely the ACCC will need to review. Who will be left in market as competition?
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You are not entitled to redundancy pay any more than is required by law, which is a fraction of what employers will usually pay to redundant employees.
It’s simply reducing liabilities, as these payments usually are accounted for as debt, before an imminent sale to bump up the price.
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It will be easier to run them both into the ground as one business.
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Wouldn’t a merger cause a monopoly of the magazine industry? ACCC won’t support this…
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These rumours of Bauer and Pac Mags merging have been going around for year. If anything, thought this would’ve come into fruition sooner given the current state of the magazine industry.
Reading all the comments above, it’ll be taken to the ACCC as it’ll cause a monopoly within the magazine industry. However, considering how the ACCC didn’t care too much with the Nine vs Fairfax merger – wouldn’t be surprised if this gets the green light.
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ACCC won’t care; there’s still News, and heaps of other smaller players in the mag space. Just need to look at the news stands to see that Pac & Bauer probably account for about 10% of real estate.
Plus the magazine pie is diminishing rapidly, and their digital market is minuscule even when compared to the print market size. It might actually be beneficial for the magazine industry to seek synergies this way instead of fighting to death for a bigger share of wallet in an ever shrinking category spend, circulation, readership etc.
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There were promises made that there were “no plans for redundancies” when the changes were made. Those were the exact words.
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Magazines in Australia to be published by a company that doesn’t want to publish magazines in Australia shock.
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When a certain payout for redundancy is guaranteed in your award, which employees have to vote on, and that redundancy is reduced in return for other benefits, on the understanding that no redundancies are planned, it seems dishonest at best.
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@To paraphrase wins the internet for today
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This is a brilliant move by Bauer, building up a war chest of additional magazine titles they can incrementally close down over the next few years.
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That’s not the point is it? The point is that this sale was all planned but staff were told there were “no plans for any redundancies” (exact words) which probably encouraged a lot of more gullible staff to sign away their existing entitlements.
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Today the internet wins.
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They don’t want the pacific mags (to either close down or to keep), they want an attractive package of titles bundled with their own in a virtual monopoly that they can on sell to someone even stupider than they are, and then leave australia.
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Let’s hope that PAcific Mags staff were not lied to or dishonestly manipulated into giving up their legal redundancy entitlememts, because any person who was a party to such a thing will have to live with the guilt of a disgustingly immoral act.
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I don’t think the ACCC are worried about monopolies in the horse and buggy business, so this ought not to attract much interest either.
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You can’t sign away what is legally entitled to you in the NES; which is peanuts anyways.
Anything on top is at the discretion of the employer.
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Yeah, “Seven” probably has/had no plans on redundancies so they’re not lying; ie. they will negotiate to have every single one of Pac’s staff transferred across to a new owner so you’re being given employment.
You should receive new contracts if Pac Mags is sold, so there’s your only opportunity to negotiate with the new owners about continuity of service, and severance packages etc.
If you decide not to take the new contract, you’ll be taken as if you’re resigning from the new entity.
Been through similar situation only a few months ago.
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I understand the game that was played, but it is just semantics. Word play. The truth is if this sale happens, and was planned to happen when redundancy changes were enacted, the staff were deliberately misled and therefore cheated out of their entitlements. Very morally wrong and dishonest. Evil.
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Here’s the thing; if the scenario plays out as I mentioned above, ie. every staff gets their SW employment contract transferred to the new entity, you won’t be eligible for redundancy pay, as technically you’re not getting made redundant.
You’re getting sold with the business as part of its assets & liabilities, and you still have the opportunity to keep doing what you’re doing at Pac with the new owner.
In that instance, it’s actually better off for employees to have better day to day conditions, at least then you’ll have a bigger Leave balance pay out etc.
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Well, the Mag industry circulation has been going down hills for years. Look how many editors have changed jobs and jumped from one to another. Everyone is becoming stuck on social media and websites, and the main reason is, the content that mags spew out weekly needs a huge revamp. Who wants to by a mag full of photo’s? What happened to the real good story content? There is a big difference between a reporter and journalist these days? Even the Woman’s Weekly has had more starts than a top racehorse? My wife buys the mags for their horoscopes written by Australian astrologers and that is great, because I and my family can read ours as well. Now that’s value for money and keeps the mags selling.
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And now, April 29 2020, sees seventy staff made redundant, two magazines discontinued, and NO REDUNDANCIES paid.
Scam indeed.
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