Who wants Nine’s New Zealand assets?

Market sources say that Nine has had numerous approaches for Stuff and its other New Zealand newspaper publications, such as the Dominion Post.

Sydney-based private equity firm Anacacia Capital is believed to have held discussions with Nine Entertainment about acquiring its New Zealand assets, in what would be a joint deal with the National Business Review publication across the Tasman.

The talks came before a private equity firm was understood to be circling the New Zealand publications owned by both Nine Entertainment and NZME about six weeks ago, according to sources.

It also comes as Nine Entertainment announced to the market on Monday that it had called off talks with NZME about a proposed sale of its own business across the Tasman for $1.

Some in the market were earlier questioning whether Nine had a superior proposal that it was pursuing with a buyout fund for the business that includes the New Zealand news website, Stuff.

Market sources say that Nine, which inherited the newspaper business as part of its acquisition of Fairfax Media, has had numerous approaches for Stuff and its other New Zealand newspaper publications, such as the Dominion Post, The Christchurch Press and The Sunday Star Times.

However, the Australian-listed media company had not been eager to entertain many of the offers in the past, say sources.

A small Sydney-based private equity fund, known to be Anacacia, had shown a keen interest, sources said, and it is understood New Zealand’s National Business Review has the Sydney group founded by Jeremy Samuel backing a proposed transaction.

Anacacia promotes itself on its website as a company that backs small to medium enterprises.

NZME, which is working with adviser Jarden, is said to have been caught off guard by Nine’s announcement that the talks had ended.

Nine Entertainment has Jefferies as an adviser but Macquarie Capital advised Fairfax.

A plan to merge NZME, which owns the country’s largest paper, the New Zealand Herald, and the former Fairfax New Zealand newspaper and digital media business was blocked by the Commerce Commission in 2017.

However, fresh attempts to gain government approval for a deal were made last year, as revealed by DataRoom in August.