Nine's Snexit
The nation's largest domestic media company is facing the same strategic challenges as it was three and a half years ago when Mike Sneesby took the reins.
When Mike Sneesby was appointed chief executive of Nine Entertainment three and a half years ago, the company was in a sweet spot but still facing some obvious strategic challenges.
Nine’s market value was sitting comfortably north of $5 billion, its shares having just touched their highest levels since the stock returned to the ASX boards in 2013 following a disastrous private equity buyout and near collapse. About $1 billion in value had been added since its merger with Fairfax Media was completed a little more than two years earlier.
Nine had also sidestepped the worst of the Covid-19 period, trimmed its cost base (in part through a renegotiation of its NRL rights deal) and looked well-positioned to capitalise on an anticipated rebound in advertising spending. A lucrative licensing deal with Google had just been inked, and another with Facebook would soon follow.
Yet Sneesby still needed to "act quickly and decisively to ensure the current operating momentum is maintained", I wrote upon his appointment. (Like a few of us at Capital Brief, I previously worked at Nine, and was national business editor of its metro mastheads at the time.)
