Billionaire ‘Twiggy’ Forrest approached to save Australian Women’s Weekly from fire sale

Senior industry figures have approached iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest and begged him to save the iconic title from a potential fire sale at the nation’s biggest publishing house.

Fortescue Metals Group non-executive chairman Andrew Forrest already owns RM Williams and RM Williams magazine. Picture: AFP

One of the nation’s richest men has been approached to help rescue its most famed magazine, The Australian Women’s Weekly, from a “souped-up garage sale”, as its owner looks to offload its entire catalogue of glossy titles.

Sources say senior industry figures had met with iron ore magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s private investment company, Tattarang, and begged him to make a play to take over the title after private equity group Mercury Capital put its publishing house, Are Media, up for sale in July.

As part of the pitch, they claimed the 92-year-old glossy was a natural fit for the billionaire philanthropist’s family firm, which already owns RM Williams and RM Williams magazine.

A spokesperson for Mr Forrest declined to comment on any discussions about making a move to save the Weekly.

The proposal comes after Mercury Capital, which has owned Australia’s largest magazine publishing house for the past five years, entrusted KPMG Corporate Finance with the task of finding would-be suitors for business.

Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest

The Australian Women’s Weekly

The private equity firm has so far ruled out breaking up the business – which is also home to once-highly profitable titles such as Better Homes and Gardens, Woman’s Day and New Idea – insisting the company was “being ­offered for sale in its entirety”.

Former group publisher Peter Holder, who left magazines to run the Daily Mail’s then fledgling Australian website in 2014 and is not part of the current proposal, said he appreciated Mercury Capital’s reluctance to sell off individual titles but questioned why investors would risk investing into the overall business.

“I can understand why the owners would want to sell it as a whole, as opposed to selling off mags and brands to multiple third parties, because that would make it a souped-up, time-consuming garage sale; and rarely does everything go in a garage sale,” he said.

“But the question remains, who would want to buy the bloody thing in its entirety?

Former Bauer group publisher Peter Holder

“There’s no growth in magazines, just decline – with the possible exception of its puzzle mags or the reliance on royals dying or getting married for special tributes. But that is hardly a strong publishing blueprint.

“Everywhere you look in its suite of titles, there are challenges,” he said.

Mercury Capital, which is run by chief executive and chairman Clark Perkins, bought the publishing company from the Australian arm of Germany magazine giant Bauer Media for close to $50m in June 2020.

The deal went through little more than a month after Bauer Media bought Pacific Magazines from Seven West Media for a similar amount and merged it with the former Australian Consolidated Press titles it had already acquired from Nine Entertainment for $525m in 2012.

Bauer Australia’s then boss, Brendon Hill, said the deal had been vital to “driving the consolidation publishing needs right now to be competitive at what is a very challenging time for our industry”.

Instead, it lumped the company, rebranded as Are Media after Mercury Capital’s takeover, with duplicate titles competing for the same rapidly evaporating audiences, with the new entity owning both the former ACP titles Woman’s Day, Belle and Take 5 as well as the Pac Mags’ traditional rivals New Idea, Better Homes and Gardens and That’s Life.

Are Media owns many one-time rival titles, like former Australian Consolidated Press magazine Woman’s Day

As well as Woman’s Day’s former chief competitor at Pacific Magazines, New Idea

Holder said Bauer had botched the company’s migration to digital by throwing all its titles together on one website, inexplicably called “Now To Love”, in 2017.

“The biggest roadblock to a ­potential buyer would have to be its weak digital footprint,” he said.

“It wasn’t all that long ago that the Woman’s Day app was simply selling past issues of the magazine, and not feeding any of its content. It does provide content now, but like everything there on the digital front, it’s all completely off the pace being set elsewhere.”