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After news broke last week that former Domain chief executive turned Australian Community Media chairman Antony Catalano had been charged with assaulting a woman, attention in media industry circles turned to the fate of his regional media assets.
Catalano, who was placed on an “immediate leave of absence” by Australian Community Media’s parent company following the news, bought ACM alongside Melbourne investor Alex Waislitz from Nine Entertainment, owner of this masthead, for more than $125 million in 2019.
In the days since news of the charges broke, the regional newspaper publisher – which operates The Canberra Times, The Newcastle Herald and the Illawarra Mercury, among other mastheads – has been the subject of mounting industry chatter over a possible sale of its media assets.
Over the past year, media industry executives have been sounded out over their possible interest in buying ACM’s publishing assets, but a buyer has yet to emerge, according to three sources familiar with its efforts, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information. Now the company is expected to try again.
It’s difficult to imagine who would buy it. Nine offloaded the assets, and News Corp Australia’s interest in the regional media business is a relative unknown. Then there is Southern Cross Austereo, which scooped up a handful of publishing assets when it merged with Seven West Media earlier this year. Even then, CBD hears the company is not looking at Catalano’s regional media empire.
On Sunday, a statement signed by the ACM board and executive leadership team said Catalano’s absence “will not affect the day-to-day running of ACM”. ACM managing director Tony Kendall did not respond to questions in time for publication.
The ACM statement says: “As executive chair, his role is not operational. ACM has a capable and experienced management team that is committed to the continuity and stability of the business and to its standards of safety, respect, integrity and inclusion. ACM’s mastheads have a long and proud history of upholding the values of the audiences they represent. They are a trusted voice in keeping our communities strong, informed and connected. That will not change.”
Libs wheel out Berejiklian and Perrottet for fundraiser
Parliamentarians and their staffers have already started counting down the days until the next NSW state election. Given the bloodbath the Liberal Party suffered at the federal level last year, it looks like its NSW division is trying to build a war chest early.
What better way to lure the state’s Tory faithful out of the house than with a trip down memory lane? The nostalgia was in full swing at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Friday night for the 30th anniversary of former prime minister John Howard’s election victory. And it won’t be long before the party’s state supporters get to cast their minds back to a time when they, too, were relevant.
The NSW Liberals are set to wheel out each of the party’s past five living premiers to raise cash and “energise our movement” on March 26 as it sets its sights on the 2027 state election, less than a year away.
Former premiers Barry O’Farrell and Mike Baird are slated to address guests of a gala dinner at a yet-to-be-disclosed location in Sydney’s inner west. Also set to front the crowd are Gladys Berejiklian and Nick Greiner, while Dominic Perrottet is promised to beam in from the US.
Of course, the state gala is just one of a smattering of party events this year, including Howard’s 30th anniversary function in Sydney on Friday night, where Berejiklian was also a guest.
Howard himself was there, as was former treasurer Peter Costello, former prime minister Tony Abbott, former deputy PM John Anderson, NSW opposition leader Kellie Sloane, and former federal opposition leader Peter Dutton. Federal leader Angus Taylor went along with his new sidekick, Nationals leader Matt Canavan, and we hear both spoke at the event.
The federal Liberal Party said the function welcomed some 550 guests. Others spotted at the event by our spies were deputy leader Jane Hume, Dan Tehan and Tasmanian senator Claire Chandler. For good measure, CBD hears there was a Sky News contingent in attendance, which was represented by network boss Paul “Boris” Whittaker, Chris Uhlmann, and The Australian’s Paul Kelly, whose recent Howard doco, we can only guess, got the big man’s approval.
Not a bad turnout. If only the party was as good at winning elections.
Atlassian founders inspire new book
It was only last week that Atlassian, the Australian tech company founded by Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes in 2002, announced it would lay off 1600 staff, or about 10 per cent of its workforce, as a result of the explosive rise of AI.
The announcement was the latest in a string of developments at the company over the past two years, making it a wellspring of material for our colleagues across the industry.
But our guess is that John Stensholt and Perry Williams, two business journalists at The Australian, will be hoping that the company stops making news soon. The pair are the co-authors of a new book on the company, titled Tech Bros, set to be published by HarperCollins on July 28.
HarperCollins bills the book as an account of the founders’ origins and Atlassian’s rise to the Nasdaq, where its debut “shattered records” and made its founders billions.
“But as Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar’s empire grew from a single email into a global powerhouse, so did the cracks in their partnership. Within 20 years, the pressure of success would bring the co-founders into conflict,” the publisher’s description of the book reads.
“Disputes over strategy, property and ambition destroyed their friendship just as the rise of artificial intelligence threatened what they had created.”
If the past 12 months are anything to go by, we hope Stensholt and Williams are given time for late changes.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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