NZ Life & Leisure will continues with a new publisher after the liquidation of its previous publisher last month.
NZ Life & Leisure will continues with a new publisher after the liquidation of its previous publisher last month.
The insolvent company that published national magazineNZ Life & Leisure has a $70,000 deficit but the title has been sold to another publisher so it can continue.
Keaton Pronk, the McDonald Vague liquidator of publisher Lifestyle Magazine Group, released his initial report on the company, whose shareholdersdecided on December 10 to declare liquidation after ceasing trading last April.
NZ Life & Leisure has been sold to publishers CountryWide Media, which has NZ Dairy Exporter, pastoral and arable farming magazine Country-Wide and latitude Magazine which it says is now NZ Life & Leisure.
A statement of affairs on Lifestyle Magazine Group noted printer Webstar – a division of print business Bluestar Group (New Zealand) – and Fujifilm Business Innovation New Zealand had securities registered over the company via the Personal Property Securities Register.
Webstar, listed in the statement as being owed $67,000, specialises in high-volume catalogues, magazines and directories.
Although the statement of affairs also listed Fujifilm as having a registered security, it also said the asset had been returned and the account had been settled so listed no sums owed.
Trade creditors are owed $28,000, bringing the total owed, including Webstar’s $67,000 debt, to $95,000.
However, that could potentially be offset by the $25,000 in the bank resulting in the $70,000 deficit at this stage.
Those figures were based on numbers supplied by the company and Pronk said he was yet to verify them.
NZ Post, Accident Compensation Corporation, Southern Cross Health Insurance, vehicle leasing business FleetPartners and Sally Fullham appear on the short schedule of creditors at the end of the report.
NZ Post is among those listed as being owed money.
Pronk could not say how much would be repaid.
“We are not aware of anything owing to former employees for wages, holiday pay and redundancy pay‚” Pronk’s report said.
“The Inland Revenue Department has not yet provided us with a creditor’s claim form but we are not aware of any outstanding PAYE or GST.
“It is too early to estimate what preferential creditors may recover.”
Assets were estimated to be $68,000, including $25,000 in the bank. But only the bank account’s $25,000 was recoverable from assets, according to the statement of affairs.
Lifestyle Magazine Group traded as NZ Life & Leisure Magazine and NZ Lifestyle Block Magazine, according to the Companies Office.
The company was incorporated in 2015, with directors Lynley Belton of Mt Albert and Kathleen [known as Kate] Mary Coughlan of Remuera.
Belton and Coughlan own the company.
“The shareholders decided that it was no longer sustainable to continue to publish their magazines because of significant cost increases, particularly in postage and printing coupled with declining revenue,” Pronk’s report said.
“Advertising revenues had not recovered since the Covid-19 pandemic and were further reduced by the current economic conditions.”
Circulation revenues were still substantial in a New Zealand industry context. But they were not enough alone to make the business sustainable and were also declining, the report said.
The owners spent time seeking a buyer “that could offer greater synergy within a larger portfolio, but this was unsuccessful as other publishers were not keen to take on additional subscription liability in a challenging market”, Pronk said.
The shareholders therefore decided to cease publishing and advised subscribers of that decision.
But they were later able to sell both magazines and the website for the value of the subscription liability.
That meant all subscribers would receive subscriptions in full, Pronk said.
Coughlan established the magazine 20 years ago with Australian publisher R.M. Williams.
Creditors have till February 14 to submit claims to McDonald Vague.
Sarah Perriam-Lampp, CountryWide chief executive and editor in chief, said purchase of the title last July had resulted in a successful continuation of publication.
“We merged NZ Life & Leisure into our business Countrywide. With our portfolio of brands and other business units including video and audio production, we have been able to make significant cost savings through economies of scale they weren’t available to a single-title independent publisher.
“We have also negotiated with and changed printers to Inkwise to reduce cost and moved 50% to 60% of our postage away from NZ Post to DX Mail. NZ Post is pricing itself out of mail to become a courier company,” Perriam-Lampp said.
“We have renewed support from advertisers with changes and subscription renewals. Those continue to remain strong with the new energy which we are bringing to the title,” she said.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
