The Australian today confirms the report I published here over a month ago about the owner of magazine distribution business NDD exploring sale options.
My take is that NDD has been in trouble for some time. My experience is that rather than engage in resolving issues of over supply, NDD threatened legal action against me for comments here. I took this as an indication that they wanted the reports of over supply and other problems with their model to go away rather than be addressed.
Over the last four years they have gone from the most engaged and innovating magazine distributor to the least.
The risk for newsagents is that NDD is sold to a party which looks outside the newsagency channel for retail presence. Imagine how our retail channel would be impacted if Australia Post purchased NDD and started carrying their titles in their government owned outlets.
Maybe the NANA consortium looking at a tilt at NSW Lotteries could look at a tilt at NDD.
Best guess is that they have worked out that their business model is not profitable so they are going to flog it off to a bigger fool … kinda like what newsagents do to one another :).
Mark I am curious how you found out abut this before the anf and The Australian.
David, I heard from someone inside and verified it. As for the OZ and the ANF, who knows?
Hi,can anyone tell me has anyone heard of who might be buying ndd at this stage?
Dean,
I do now know. I hear speculation, some of which concerns me, but nothing reliable.
mark,my worry is you and I are in the same boat here,we both don’t have an area which means we are subagents for newspapers{fairfax and news limited}
which means if on the off chance 1 of these get it or even {wrapaway}we will only be on half the commision.
Like I have been seeing fairfax have started to deliver a couple of mag titles the last few months,I hope this isnt the case.
Dean, if that did happen you would see fewer newsagents sell these titles. Publishers would not want that. Unless they are offered an alternative retail channel.
NDD.
Are they only selling the distribution business? What about the rest of the Hannan Group? Surely if it is only the distribution one of the other two would pick it up for it’s a bit lie the three car companies Ford, GMH, Chrysler, there is room only for two. The third one keeps them honest but not from making good “returns” (excuse the pun)
Yes, the announcement is that it is only the distribution business.
While I would eb surprised if Gotch or Network picked up the distribution business I would not be shocked.
There is little profit in magazine distribution.
I can see NDD being more value to a party wanting to get into the sape or with other plans for the titles in the portfolio.