Mercury Capital has officially taken ownership of the iconic Bauer New Zealand magazine titles and will resume publishing immediately.
The New Zealand portfolio will consist of flagship titles Woman’s Day, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, and The Australian Women’s Weekly NZ, along with home category leader Your Home & Garden, current affairs weekly NZ Listener and Air New Zealand’s award-winning magazine Kia Ora.
The portfolio will also include websites Now to Love, Homes to Love and Beauty Heaven. Property Press, which resumed publishing shortly after Level 4 restrictions were lifted, will also be part of the new portfolio.
In addition, a selection of Australian titles are being distributed into the New Zealand market.
Brendon Hill, Bauer ANZ CEO, says, “I am delighted to see the return of some of New Zealand’s most loved titles and thrilled that this allows us to bring back a talented group of editorial and advertising staff to resume the publishing of these brands.
“The return of our New Zealand operation is a green shoot during a challenging time and hopefully a sign of more positive news to come in the local media industry. We had always remained hopeful that we would be able to resume operations - the easing of Covid-19 restrictions and a more promising advertising market has allowed us to do that. As conditions improve, we hope to continue to expand our NZ operations.
“I’d like to thank our loyal readers, staff, clients and the broader industry for their support during this period.”
The New Zealand business will be headed up by Stuart Dick (General Manager) and Sarah Henry (EditorialDirector) who will be joined by a team of around 40 local editorial and advertising personnel. Operational support will be based in the Australian offices.
Mercury Capital has sold additional titles to a variety of publishers. North & South is going to independent publishers Konstantin Richter and Verena Friederike Hasel and Metro to Simon Chesterman. Both magazines will resume publication as soon as possible. The future of the remaining titles, NEXT, Taste, Fashion Quarterly, HOME and Simply You are currently being assessed including a sale to interested parties.
Hill confirmed that subscribers that have missed issues of the titles that are resuming will have these added to their subscriptions. Delivery of magazines will resume in early September.
The business will continue to trade under the Bauer name in New Zealand and Australia while a rebrand is underway, with the new brand and strategy set to be announced in the coming months.