Laurence (Bugs) Bunyan and Stephen Coleman, former owners of Stratford Press
Media company APN New Zealand has announced the purchase of Stratford Press, a weekly community newspaper operating on North Island. Stratford Press is in its 47th year of publication covering Central Taranaki on the North Island’s west coast.
Stephen Coleman of Stratford Press says the company was one of the last independent community newspapers in New Zealand still printing its own newspaper.
"The reality of the situation is that our printing equipment is past its use-by date and we could not afford to spend the capital necessary to upgrade. This has stunted the growth of Stratford Press," he says.
Under the buy-out the commercial printing arm of Stratford Press will close and all publishing staff are to be offered a transfer to APN.
APN New Zealand operates the country’s largest metropolitan daily, The New Zealand Herald, as well as a number of regional and community newspapers and mass market magazines.
It also operates printing businesses and a security plastics company and its 117 New Zealand radio stations include ratings leaders in the metropolitan markets of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
APN New Zealand is a unit of APN News & Media which publishes 23 daily and more than 100 non-daily newspapers in Australia and New Zealand. The parent company is Ireland-based Independent Newspapers PLC, headed by Irish businessman Dr. Tony O’Reilly.
A former chairman of U.S.-based H. J. Heinz & Co., O’Reilly also owns newspapers in South Africa and the United Kingdom.
