RBI’s UK travel sale raises question about future ownership of Aussie operation

Tim Burrowes

July 8, 2009 11:46

The starting gun may have been fired on what could become a break-up of the global Reed Business Information empire, which includes several publications and websites in Australia.

RBI has agreed to sell its UK travel titles including Travel Weekly and Travolution to a team that will include the former Australian publisher Colin Morrison ,who headed up the UK joint venture between ACP and NatMags. Morrison is a former chairman of Magazine Publishers of Australia.

Reed Business Information is part of Reed Elsevier. Its Australian operation includes a local edition of Travel Weekly, Australian Doctor, B&T, Money management and the Australian edition of New Scientist.

Reed Elsevier went through a protracted process of trying to sell RBI as a single global deal. It resisted attempts by various publishers to cherrypick individual parts of the company.

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Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.

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1 COMMENTS

epiphany 8 Jul 09

About time they saw sense. There is value is a few of the titles but little in most of them. Refusing to sell the winners in an attempt to offload the duds made no sense. Reckon there will be sales quickly now.

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