Domain restructures in move to ‘be in charge of own destiny’ amid float talk
Fairfax Media’s real estate division has made the decision to bring media sales in house and also move its commercial real estate section, which had been in the Financial Review Group, under one umbrella in a sign it could be preparing for a float.
The changes are part of a broader restructure by Domain CEO Anthony Catalano who was appointed to the job in November from Metro Media Publishing.
Under the restructure Tom Blamey, formerly general manager of real estate at Fairfax Media in Melbourne, becomes chief operating officer of Domain while Simon Kent, who left Standard Media Index last month, takes the role of national agency sales director, running the in house sales team.
In announcing the changes Catalano told staff that the aim of the move was to “make Domain Group a self-sufficient business unit, in control of all of its product development, marketing and sales activities.”
Be aware that the real estate agents/industry body have finally got their act together to create their own web-portal. So agents across the industry will load their listings onto the one portal – in effect getting rid of realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. I see the Domain activity as a way to defend against this threat. Real estate agents have been seething against realestate.com.au for years. Now they have stopped squabbling among themselves they can offer a better/competitive product.
Lets see what the results look like. The digital part of Domain is not a big business and the print ads cannot ever be independent of the print products.