Mercury Capital


Mercury Capital is an Australian investment firm that owns a range of healthcare and media companies.

Corporate history

On 17 June 2020, Mercury Capital purchased the Australia and New Zealand media assets of Bauer Media Group, which had sold them as a result of the economic effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic. These included the New Zealand Woman's Weekly, the New Zealand Listener, and North and South. In addition, Mercury Capital acquired all of Bauer Media Australia's print and digital assets covering women's entertainment and lifestyle; fashion, beauty and health; food; and the motoring and trader lifestyle categories. Notable Australian assets acquired by the company include Woman's Day, The Australian Women's Weekly, Rolling Stone Australia, Cleo, and Dolly.
On 17 July 2020, Mercury Capital announced that it would resume publishing several New Zealand publications including Woman's Day, the New Zealand Woman's Weekly, The Australian Women's Weekly NZ, home category magazine Your Home & Garden, current affairs weekly New Zealand Listener, Air New Zealand's in-flight magazine Kia Ora, and the Property Press. The company will also be publishing the websites Now to Love, Homes to Love and Beauty Heaven. However, Mercury Capital will sell former Bauer brands North & South to independent publishers Konstantin Richter and Verena Friederike Hasel and Metro to Simon Chesterman respectively.

Management

Mercury Capital's Chairman is Clark Perkins, who was born in New Zealand. Other board members include Sky Television founder Craig Heatley, Geoff Ricketts, and Tom Sturgess, all of whom have connections to New Zealand.

Assets

In addition to most of Bauer Media's former Australian and New Zealand assets, Mercury Capital the Blue Star Group, which includes New Zealand printers Webstar, which produced several former Bauer-owned titles.