Acquisition good news for rural sector, New Zealand

Here to stay: NZX chief executive Mark Weldon said the CPL acquisition is a long term investment by the company in agriculture.

04-05-2009 | Tony Leggett

NZX's acquisition of Country-Wide Publications Limited (CPL) is excellent news for farmers, agribusiness owners and the country, says the company's chief executive Mark Weldon.

The CPL business will be incorporated in the newly established NZX Rural division of the diverse Wellington-based business which also operates the share and bond trading platforms NZSX, NZAX and NZDX, for companies wanting to raise growth capital and investors to trade shares.

NZX Rural already contains the respected agriculture data and analysis business NZX Agrifax, plus two more recently acquired businesses, Dairy Week and ProFarmer Australia. Dairy Week is an international dairy sector newsletter aimed at corporates and ProFarmer is a West Australian-based newsletter service covering the grain sector.

Weldon said CPL was NZ's leading rural publisher and its titles had excellent readership and penetration into their target audiences. NZX had made a "long term investment in the NZ rural sector" with this acquisition, he said.

"NZX recognises the criticality of the rural sector to the NZ economy and its growth potential in the near and long term. We also recognise the importance of providing robust and comprehensive data to assist farm and corporate decision making for success."

CPL operations will still be driven out of ‘Global HQ' in Feilding and the management team of former owners Dean Williamson and Tony Leggett will continue their leadership and development of the business.

Weldon said the fit with existing NZX Rural's mostly online business publications was excellent.

"Together, we believe that this creates a truly distinctive business that has enormous combined content and distribution capability."

Weldon said NZX sees CPL as a growth business, and, together with the existing NZX Rural information titles, it is expecting real expansion and excitement from the team.

"In fact, we hope to grow jobs, not chop them, as an overseas acquirer would probably have done."

Weldon said NZX had also made two new staff appointments to provide new products that could help farmers reduce the risk of global shocks and market volatility on farm gate prices.

"NZX has hired a couple of really outstanding New Zealanders back from New York and London to help us develop products in this area to help farmers, and those dependent on commodity prices, to hedge their risk and choose their risk exposure - instead of essentially being naked as is the case today.

"It's in areas like these that NZX will look to work with the rural sector more broadly, so the capital markets become as relevant to them as things like foreign exchange hedging already are.

"Having CPL as part of our family will mean ready access to a great pool of knowledge and understanding as we start to develop tradable products based on the rural sector," Weldon said.

Williamson said the sale of CPL to NZX brought mixed emotions after more than 11 years' ownership.

"This is an exciting next step for both the CPL business and the rural sector as a whole. Bringing NZX and CPL together creates a raft of new opportunities. Both companies are innovative and focused on growth," Williamson said.

CPL's success was largely due to its hard-working team of reporters, sales, administration and production staff, and the many freelance journalists and photographers who regularly contributed to the company's titles, he said.

News of the acquisition last week surprised some in the media sector. Weldon said several journalists had asked if editorial independence was under threat for CPL's journalists and editors.

"That's an easy one to deal with right from the outset. NZX will not have oversight on CPL editorial material. The (CPL) company built its reputation on providing credible, balanced information and that will continue," he said.

NZX now publishes The New Zealand Farmers Weekly, The New Zealand Dairy Exporter, Country-Wide, The Deer Farmer and Young Country.

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