Former Fairfax regional newspaper business ACM, which became part of Nine, has just been bought for $125m by the ex CEO of real estate website Domain.
Fairfax paid $3.6bn for ACM in 2006, the massive price change indicative of how far newspapers have fallen as a marketing channel in the intervening years.Buyers is Antony Catalono – a former Fairfax reporter –who says the group which has some 170 regional papers and was originally Rural Press before joining Fairfax in 2017, has been starved of investment under the Fairfax digital first strategy. Catalono is backed bya private investment fund.
Revenues at ACM are falling, down by 8.1 per cent in the previous six months, which is more than the 6.5 per cent they fell in the prior corresponding period.Some of the ACM printing is currently shared with News, as Fairfax closed the Beresfield NSW and Ormiston Qld print sites last year. News Corp is providing a range of printing services for ACM in New South Wales and Queensland. There is no word from Catalono on how printing situation will develop.