Print Media - Room For New Players?

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I'm considering investing in a crowd called "Momentum Magazine Group" who originate from New Zealand but are looking to storm into the USA with a range of property investment magazines. They claim there aren't any at present which I find hard to believe.

Any comments on them?

Here's an article from our newspaper's business section.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/businessstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3607198

Quote:
The New Zealand magazines do seem to be successful. The investment statement claims a 12,000 circulation for the property magazine and a 42,000 readership, an 8218 circulation for Her Business and 6200 for Espy.

Those figures compare with 9551 for New Zealand Management and 8021 for Unlimited magazine. All these figures come from the latest ABC audit.

The investment statement makes the most of the magazines' readership figures, adding them all up to 96,000 and then claiming that many readers per issue (ie 42,000 for the property magazine, 31,000 for Her Business and 23,000 for Espy).

But even so, the planned international expansion stretches the imagination.

Hows says the Momentum team have spent more than 12 months preparing their plans and researching their markets.

"There's no comparable national publication that focuses on residential, single family investment homes," he says.

"We're not just assuming we're going to enter the market with a template that works in New Zealand. The mechanics of the business are different in some areas in both of those countries."

And what about staff to write these publications? Hows says he has "a very strong team" in New Zealand and is filling additional roles. He is planning to move to the US where he will be "managing director USA" and says he will be hiring staff when he gets there.

"We're not approaching this lightly. We've got a board of directors who are going to be placed in active management roles across three countries. It's a very hands-on approach that we're taking to deliver on our expectations."

Hows says he's been too busy to look at internet chatrooms.

"I don't think any statue has ever been built in honour of a critic. People are entitled to their opinion."

I wondered whether Momentum's forecasts might be eye-catching enough to have come to the Securities Commission's attention.

Kathryn Rogers, associate counsel at the commission, says it isn't able to comment on the Momentum offer specifically.

However, "those sorts of claims are certainly ones we would usually look into", particularly the 1750 per cent revenue projection, she says.

* Disclosure: The writer also writes for The New Zealand Property Magazine, a rival to Momentum's property magazine, and for Unlimited magazine.

Comments(3)

  • commercialking5th November, 2004

    There are at least a dozen property managment mags already in the US. If I were considering investing with a company that was thinking of launching another and didn't know that I would walk away on that point alone.

  • tuiheke6th November, 2004

    Thanks Commerical King. Their focus is more on the investing side than the management side. Sort of a print version of this site.

  • tuiheke16th November, 2004

    It's all over. The local Securities Commission had the float pulled, and the glamour boy of the whole thing, Brad Sugars, has resigned.

    I guess I'll save my $

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