The New Daily to be bought out by publisher
Super-funded news publication, The New Daily, is slashing jobs as it prepares to move into the hands of its new publisher, Solstice Media.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that eight roles have been made redundant as Solstice Media prepares to buy the publication, with the deal expected to be finalised by the end of the year.
The New Daily launched in 2013 with an unorthodox ownership structure comprising of six super funds: AustralianSuper, HESTA, LUCRF, United Super, First Super, and Cbus. It was helmed by former Herald Sun editor, Bruce Guthrie.
By June 2016, Industry Super Holdings became the sole owner of The New Daily, with its “commercial investment” becoming profitable by FY16, albeit by just $14,000.
In August, the umbrella group confirmed it was looking to offload the publication, citing the loss of Meta payments under the news bargaining code.
“In light of the decision by Meta to cease payments for news from media companies, combined with other pressures in the industry, the board of The New Daily is undertaking a market scan to identify whether a sale would be in the best interest of the business,” a spokesperson said. M&A advisory Grant Thornton is in charge of the sale process.
Paul Hamra, managing director of Motion Publishing a subsidiary of Solstice told the Herald, “we want to keep The New Daily going, as we have set it up 10 years ago”.
“We’ve got a really large audience, and we want to continue to serve that large audience. We need to rely on integrating it into the Solstice company so that we can offset some of the costs within our existing operations,” Hamra said.
“We have a significant audience that’s still very attractive to advertisers.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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