Overview
This profile looks at West Australian Newspapers Holdings (WAN).
Introduction
WAN publishes The West Australian and 18 regional newspapers in Western Australia.
It has nine per cent of the overall capital city and national newspaper market, nine per cent of the Australian suburban market and one per cent of the regional market.
WAN also owns eight per cent of AAP Information Services.
In December 2004 it announced an agreement to buy half of the Hoyts cinema chain from Kerry Packer's Consolidated Press Holdings (CPH) for $173 million. Hoyts operates 377 cinema screens in 47 complexes (accounting for 23 per cent of the Australian market and 16 per cent in New Zealand), an independent film distribution business and Val Morgan Cinema Advertising.
Background
The group was an affiliate of the Herald & Weekly Times (H&WT) empire. H&WT repulsed a takeover bid by Robert Holmes a Court but succumbed to the embrace of Rupert Murdoch's News group in 1987. In the subsequent restructuring of assets control of West Australian Newspapers passed to a Court and then to Alan Bond during the latter's shuffle of Bell Resources.
The papers were caught up in the Bond group collapse. In 1991 the group's receivers floated WA Newspapers Holdings for around $220 million.