Journalist Alan Kohler has pledged to stay on with News Limited for four years following the purchase of Business Spectator in an offer too good to refuse.
Kohler has said News Limited will help the former independent publisher realise growth it would not have been able to realise on its own.
Yesterday, News Limited announced it had bought Australian Independent Business Media, the publisher of Business Spectator and the Eureka Report. The acquisition was part of a raft of structural changes to be undertaken by the media conglomerate.
Kohler has signed a new four-year contract with News and will serve as editor-in-chief of the two business websites. Additionally, AIBM staffers Bob Gottliebsen, Steve Bartholomeusz, James Kirby, Nicholas Gray and James Leplaw have all inked 'long-term' contracts as well.
Kohler said in a letter to partners: “It is a substantial media business with a strong presence and a great relationship with its customers, both readers and advertisers. The fact that News Ltd has made us an offer we can't refuse is an affirmation of that fact.
“Our business is going to grow under their ownership in a way that we could never have managed on our own. It was this, in the end, that sealed it for me: this transaction will provide all of us personally with fantastic new opportunities for advancement and growth in a global organisation that is, itself changing and modernising to focus on digital publishing.”
Kohler assuaged advertisers that there will no immediate change to websites' sale coverage and future campaigns.
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