NZME has bought the former Age press equipment from rival Stuff’s Petone, Wellington print centre and will install it at a new Auckland plant, delivering savings estimated at NZ$7 million (A$5.82 million) a year.
Stuff found itself in an untenable situation when former owner Fairfax Media (Nine Entertainment) sold the building to a third party, and will switch production of The Post and other titles to its Christchurch print centre in New Zealand’s South Island next year.
Fairfax had earlier modernised Petone with one of the 2002 manroland Ageman presses from its iconic Tullamarine (Melbourne) print site, displaced following its closure in 2014.
It is this press and associated Ferag mailroom equipment that NZME will install into a new Auckland facility, closing its larger and less efficient Ellesmere plant. An oblique bonus for Stuff is that it will be saved the cost of removing the press.
Instead, NZME will begin removing it later this year, with relocation to a new building at a yet-to-be-announced location in Auckland. Its lease on the Ellesmere print centre – which houses a much bigger and older Goss press – expires in 2028.
NZME chief executive Michael Boggs says the deal will help “right size” its production capacity, ensuring future sustainability. Total investment – including relocation, installation and commissioning – is expected to be up to NZ$15 million over the next two years, with cashflow payback within the following three years.
“The Petone equipment is about a third of the size of NZME’s current plant and runs more efficiently, meaning the acquisition is expected to deliver annual operating savings of around $7 million, subject to print volumes, once installed.”
Boggs also talks up the possibility then of “further third-party print options throughout the North Island”, with the veiled implication that NZME might then be able to bid for the printing of Stuff’s daily The Post.
Boggs says print remains “an important part” of how many New Zealanders consume news and connect with their communities. “We’re investing in the capability to continue delivering that for years to come, alongside our growing digital platforms,” he said.
With the lease at Ellerslie running to the end of 2028, there’s time for the Petone equipment to be installed at a new facility in what he calls “a managed transition that ensures continuity of service for NZME’s print customers”.
The double-width presses and Swiss-made mailroom equipment came from the A$200 million print centre Fairfax built beside the Tullamarine freeway in Melbourne, opened by then premier Steve Bracks in 2003, and closed 11 years later. Part of the German-made press later went to Fairfax’s North Richmond, NSW plant – enabling Fairfax to shut its two metropolitan print sites – and has since been relocated to News Corp Australia’s Adelaide print centre. The Petone site, ten kilometres north-east of Wellington, was upgraded in 2015, with a second folder added, together with new control technology and new Ferag mailroom equipment.
NZME chief publishing officer Matt Wilson said the Petone plant equipment was “more modern, well maintained and right-sized” for NZME’s current and future requirements: “Acquiring it gives us the opportunity to improve productivity, reduce wastage further, and establish a printing platform that matches our business. We’re pleased to have been able to move quickly to secure this asset.
“NZME has a strong record of reliability and award-winning print quality, which is a reflection of the capability of our team. We’re committed to carrying that same standard of excellence into our new facility with a seamless transition.”
Spare capacity at Ellerslie has been a fact of life for more then a decade, with the large Goss HT70 press there having been central to a NZ$40 million upgrade programme in 2013. That changed to some extent when the then Fairfax Media NZ (now Stuff) quietly abandoned plans for a greenfield print site in suburban Auckland – equipped with kit from the very same former Age press as that now moving up from Petone – and agreed to outsource work to its rival APN.
Announcing the deal – and hoped-for “further $20 million in cost savings” in 2014 for NZME’s parent, APN was then chief executive Michael Miller, now executive chairman of News Corp Australasia.
Peter Coleman
Pictured top: The manrolandGoss Ageman press at Petone, and (above) the Goss HT70 line at Ellerslie, installed in 1996 with 12 four-high towers and nine mono units