News Limited today completed its acquisition of 46 FPC newspaper, magazine and online properties from Sydney's Hannan family for an undisclosed sum.
The transaction includes:
- 25 magazine titles, including Vogue Australia, Australian Good Taste, delicious, GQ and Notebook
- 13 community newspaper titles including Wentworth Courier, Central, Inner West Courier, North Side Courier, Southern Courier, and the Village Voice titles
- The commuter titles 9TO5 and City Weekly
- Six online properties including vogue.com.au, notebook.com.au and villagevoice.com.au
News Limited chairman and chief executive officer, John Hartigan, says, "I am delighted the deal has been completed. It transforms News into one of Australia's largest magazine publishers and further strengthens our position as Australia’s largest and most successful publisher of community newspapers.
"Across the portfolio, these titles offer quality content, strong brands and leadership positions spanning numerous categories and markets. As part of News we see enormous potential to offer advertisers new, creative ways to reach consumers and vastly expanded market penetration," Hartigan says.
"The acquisition will allow News to develop a range of brand extensions, including the development of bundled print solutions for advertisers and completely new products that will work across a number of platforms," Hartigan says.
FPC managing director, Michael Hannan, says, "News Limited is superbly placed to capitalise on quality of the magazines and newspapers, to develop new solutions for advertisers and to offer outstanding career paths for our people."
The magazines included in the deal are:
- Australian Country Style
- Australian Golf Digest
- Australian Good Taste
- Australian Parents
- BCME
- Chopper
- Delicious
- Fast Fours
- Gardening Australia
- GQ
- Lifestyle Pools
- Live To Ride
- Modern Boating
- Modern Fishing
- Notebook
- Overlander 4WD
- Super Food Ideas
- Tattoo
- Truck Australia
- Truckin’ Life
- Two Wheels
- Two Wheels Scooter
- Vogue Australia
- Vogue Entertaining + Travel
- Vogue Living
News Magazines existing titles include
- donna hay
- Inside Out
- Big League
- ALPHA – It’s Sport And It’s Personal
The newspapers included in the deal are:
Sydney community titles
- Wentworth Courier
- Central Courier
- Inner West Courier
- North Side Courier
- Southern Courier
- Village Voice titles (Balmain, Drummoyne, Harbourside and Beachside)
Queensland community Weekender titles (Noosa, Sunshine and Gympie) and Best of the Gold Coast
Sydney commuter titles
- 9TO5
- City Weekly
News Limited Community Newspapers existing stable includes 101 titles, which are delivered to over 85 per cent of Australian households and are read by over 6.1m people each week.
The online assets included in the deal are
- vogue.com.au
- notebook.com.au
- fastfoursvip.com
- overlander.com.au
- taste.com.au
and the Community website villagevoice.com.au
The websites will be run by News Digital Media, the digital division of News Limited. News Digital Media oversees the business operations of digital properties, NEWS.com.au, FOXSPORTS.com.au, truelocal.com.au, CareerOne.com.au, CARSguide.com.au, in2mobi, Moshtix, along with partly-owned realestate.com.au and related activities involving News Limited newspapers, and the Australian versions of Fox Interactive Media sites myspace.com and IGN.com.
