The National Magazine Company is to aquire 100 per cent of the weekly titles published under a joint venture with Australian Consolidated Press.
ACP is to sell NatMag its 50 per cent interest in ACP-NatMag, which publishes Best, Reveal and Real People, which will be fully integrated into Natmag under chief executive Duncan Edwards and managing director Jessica Burley. ACP-NatMag chief executive Colin Morrison will leave the company following the deal.
Morrison said: “The success of ACP-NatMag during the past three years has been due to our excellent weekly magazine teams. I want to thank them and also everyone at NatMag for making this such an enjoyable and successful three years. I wish the weekly magazine teams every future success as part of what I believe is, by far, the country’s best magazine publishing group.”
Edwards said: ‘We have been very pleased with our expanded footprint in the weekly magazine market through our partnership with ACP and with the progress that our titles have made over the last three years. When ACP indicated that it would like to sell its interest in the joint venture to concentrate on its rapidly growing business in Australasia, we were very happy to acquire its 50 per cent interest.
“Hearst, our parent company, continues to enjoy an excellent relationship with ACP through its joint venture in Australasia, which publishes Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar and Madison. Colin Morrison has done an excellent job as chief executive of the joint venture since it was formed in 2004 and I would like to thank him for all his hard work and wish him all the best for the future. “
In the second half of 2007, ACP-NatMag saw an overall circulation decrease of 9.1 per cent, according to ABC figures. Best was down 8.7 per cent year on year to 330,770, Real People down 13.4 per cent year on year to 269,376 and reveal down 5.6 per cent to 326,057.
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