More on the strange case of NZX and CPL

Further to this post on the Stock Exchange’s baffling – to me – purchase of the rural publishing company CPL and Cactus Kate’s conspiracy theory which seeks to explain it, Jenni McManus is also on the case in Stuff’s Business Day. She quotes Adam Fricker, managing editor of Rural News, as saying, “Can the stock exchange operate the market and also operate commercially? How does NZX fit with owning a media company?” Two good questions.

Cactus Kate adds in her latest broadside:

I am still in disbelief that New Zealand can have a regulator that has to participate in the market to return profits to shareholders. Any offshore jurisdiction that I deal with that had such a set-up would be chastised by the OECD and FATF for such a conflict, New Zealand must be getting away with it for its perceived "first world" status. It would be the equivalent of the newly heavily regulated and reviewed Cook Islands Financial Services Commission setting up their own trust company to compete against the six licensed companies. Banana republic time indeed and of course the six licensed companies would complain, with good reason.

There may be a lesson for NZX and its CEO Mark Weldon from across the Tasman. Few New Zealanders will be following the upheavals at the Australian current affairs magazine The Monthly, in which the highly regarded editor, Sally Warhaft, has walked because of interference from Robert Manne, chair of the advisory board, but there’s a quick overview by the SMH here, an update by Caroline Overington after the deputy editor also walked here, and an excellent critique of the mag by Guy Rundle at Crikey here. While the story itself may be of interest only to media junkies, there are some astute comments about magazine publishing in general which Weldon could consider - in particular, Rundle's key line:

To go into the magazine trade now is like starting a stable just as the first Model T Ford rolls off the line.