Nine Entertainment Co.


Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings Limited is an Australian publicly-listed media company with holdings in radio and television broadcasting, newspaper publications and digital media. The entity is largely a successor to the former Publishing and Broadcasting Limited, which was established by the Packer family.
Nine Entertainment was created as PBL Media to be the holding company for PBL's media assets. The Packers officially ended their involvement with the company in 2008 and its name was changed to Nine in 2010. The company merged with Fairfax Media in December 2018, expanding its brands and investments across television, video on demand, print, digital, radio and real estate classifieds.
Currently, Nine’s assets include the Nine Network, Nine Radio, major newspaper mastheads such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review, digital properties such as nine.com.au, 9Honey, Pedestrian.TV, subscription video platform Stan and majority investments in the Domain Group and CarAdvice.

History

The company was a successor of the long-established Australian media group Australian Consolidated Press, created by Sir Frank Packer, whose Channel 9 was Australia's first commercial TV network. Kerry Packer inherited the company after his father's death in 1974. ACP was combined with the Nine Network in 1994 as Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd.

PBL Media

Under a split of PBL into two companies, after Kerry Packer's death in 2005, PBL Media, formerly held by PBL, was transferred to Consolidated Media Holdings.
PBL Media was established in October 2006, when PBL transferred its media interests, including the ACP Magazines, Nine Network, and ninemsn, to the new business - a joint venture between PBL and CVC Asia Pacific. The recapitalisation was announced on 18 October 2006.
John Alexander, Chief Executive Officer of PBL, was announced as the Executive Chairman of PBL Media, along with Ian Law as CEO and Pat O'Sullivan as Chief Financial Officer. The company's current directors are Ian Law, Chris Anderson, Martin Dalgleish, Robert Lucas, Adrian MacKenzie and Maarten Ruijs.
In June 2007, PBL announced that it would sell a further 25% to CVC Capital Partners for 515 million. In September 2007, it was announced that the transaction was to go ahead at the increased purchase price of approximately 526 million.
On 27 October 2008, James Packer and CMH representatives, such as Alexander, resigned from the board of PBL Media, effectively ending financial backing and future associations with the company. Packer later sold his media interests.
On 16 December 2008, PBL Media issued a press release stating that the company's majority shareholder, CVC Capital Partners, had refinanced debt facilities as well as injecting in excess of 300 million. CMH stated that they would not be investing any further funds, and as such, CMH's 25% interest became diluted to a stake less than 1%.

Nine Entertainment

From 2 December 2010, PBL Media rebranded as Nine Entertainment Company In December 2011 former McDonald's Australia chief executive Peter Bush was appointed chairman following the resignation of Tim Parker. In February 2013 David Haslingden, previously President and Chief Operating Officer of Fox Networks Group, was appointed to the Board as an independent non-executive director and chairman.
In December 2013, Nine Entertainment listed on the ASX, trading as. Vendors included Apollo Global Management, Oaktree Capital and Goldman Sachs who took over from CVC in a refinancing deal in October 2012.
In 2014, Nine Entertainment Co founded online streaming company Stan with Fairfax Media, investing 50 million into the joint venture.
On 16 April 2015 Nine Entertainment Co announced the sale of its Nine Live business to Affinity Equity Partners for 640 million to reduce debt and fund an ongoing capital management program.
In October 2015 WIN Corporation purchased a 14% stake in Nine Entertainment Co. from investment fund operator Apollo. In November 2015, Hugh Marks was appointed CEO. He replaced David Gyngell, who remains on the board. In February 2016, Peter Costello was appointed chairman.

Southern Cross affiliation

In March 2016, Nine Entertainment Co purchased a 9.9% stake in Southern Cross Media Group from the Macquarie Group. On 29 April 2016, Nine Entertainment Co. ended a 27-year affiliation agreement with WIN Corporation, instead partnering with Southern Cross Austereo in parts of regional Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, after securing a 50% revenue sharing deal with Southern Cross, which is higher than its existing 39% deal with WIN. Nine sold its stake in the business in September.

Fairfax merger

On 26 July 2018, Nine Entertainment Co. and Fairfax Media announced they agreed on terms for a merger between the two companies to become Australia's largest media company. As a result of the merger, Nine shareholders own 51.1 percent of the combined entity and Fairfax shareholders own 48.9 percent. After the merger between Nine Entertainment Co and Fairfax Media in December 2018 WIN Corporation's stake was diluted to 7.76%, but later increased to 15.24% in January 2018. In September 2018 it was announced that WIN Corporation's overall economic interest had grown to 25%.

Stuff sale

On 25 May 2020, Nine Entertainment sold their New Zealand subsidiary Stuff, which had been acquired during the purchase of Fairfax in December 2018, to Stuff's chief executive Sinead Boucher for NZ$1. The transaction is due to be completed by 31 May and marks the return of Stuff into New Zealand ownership. As part of the agreement, Nine will benefit from all proceeds of the sale of wholesale broadband business Stuff Fibre to telecommunications company Vocus Group, and ownership of Stuff's Wellington printing press.

Assets

Television

News. Talk. Sport.

Nine Radio also manages national sales for Nova Entertainment owned-and-operated 5AA.

Music

Digital & Publishing

News