Nine carves up events business as Fairfax clear-out continues

Nine has carved up the events business inherited from its $4bn merger with Fairfax Media.

Half of the staff within the events and entertainment division, formerly Fairfax Events and Entertainment, will move to the new owner’s Oceania division, which will include, among other events, the annual City2Surf race. Picture: AAP

Nine Entertainment has carved up the events business inherited from its $4 billion merger with Fairfax Media, selling five major sporting events to Ironman Group for $31 million.

The remaining seven or so events will be integrated with Nine’s publishing operations and some smaller sporting and parenting events shut down, resulting in some staff lay-offs.

The deal includes annual Sun Herald City2Surf running race, the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon, Carman’s Women’s Fun Run, Melbourne Corporate Triathlon and Spring Cycle, and will result in around half of its 50 events staff move to the new owner’s Oceania division in Sydney.

Nine (NEC) said its newspaper publications will continue to have an “ongoing relationship with their respective events, continuing as naming partners.”

Nine, which inherited about a dozen events from the former Fairfax events business in December, said it would no longer continue with “some of its smaller sporting events, and also exit the parenting vertical”, which is expected to lead to a “limited number of redundancies within the business.”

A Nine spokeswoman declined to comment on the number of job losses.

Nine said its business and food operations, which include the Night Noodle Markets, Good Food Month, The Australian Financial Review Business Summit and Women of Influence Awards, will move into its publishing division “to better align with their respective editorial brands.”

“The decision to put food and business within publishing helps to ensure popular events like Good Food Month and The Australian Financial Review Business Summit continue to be well placed to leverage the power of their associated editorial brands,” Alex Parsons, acting managing director of Nine’s events and entertainment division said in a statement.

Nine’s women’s events and content business, Future Women, which is run by Helen McCabe, sits within Nine’s publishing division, and isn’t impacted by the sale of the five sporting events.

Nine is believed to be struggling to sell its operations in New Zealand, also inherited from the Fairfax deal along with its regional publishing operations, known as Australian Community Media.

Nine late last month announced the sale of ACM, which consists of 160-plus regional mastheads, to Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz’s Thorney Investment Group for $125 million.

The pair will pay $105m by the end of June, and another $10m within the next 12 months. The deal also includes $10m of advertising for Nine.