The owners of online news platform The Journal and its sister sports publication and podcaster the42.ie have pulled the plug on a potential sale of the brands to Irish Independent publisher Mediahuis and are committed to their long-term future, staff have been told.
Brian Fallon, who set up Journal Media with his brother Eamonn in 2010, confirmed to employees on Tuesday that the company had considered a sale of Journal Media, but ultimately decided not to proceed.
The Irish Times reported last week that the owners were in talks to sell the business to Mediahuis. It is understood the Business Post, controlled by Galway businessman Enda O’Coineen’s Kilcullen Kapital Partners, was an underbidder for the business in a sales process being run in-house by Journal Media, the parent of the news brands.
The value of a potential deal was said to be in the “low single-digit millions”.
However, at a meeting on Tuesday that lasted more than an hour, Brian Fallon told staff the sale is now off the table and that while a deal was considered, the company ultimately decided not to proceed. Mr Fallon said that he and his brother are committed to the long-term future of Journal Media.
Multiple phone calls to Mr Fallon were not returned. A spokeswoman for Mediahuis declined to comment.
Eamonn and Brian Fallon are also co-founders of the Daft.ie property website, which they established in 1997, when they were 20 and 15 years old, respectively. They merged that business, along with sister company Adverts.ie, with Norway-based Schibsted Media Group’s DoneDeal.ie in 2015. The resulting joint venture company, Distilled Ltd, is 50 per cent owned by the Fallons, who hold their shares through DML Capital Unlimited – also Journal Media’s ultimate parent company – and 50 per cent owned by Adevinta, a Schibsted spin-off.
The42.ie is a subscription-based sports service, while The Journal is open to contributions from readers. Journal Media also operates Noteworthy.ie, an investigative journalism platform crowdfunded by readers.
Journal Media closed down a pop culture news site, DailyEdge.ie, in 2019 and its Fora.ie business news service the following year. The latter closure was blamed on cost-cutting measures across the business during the pandemic.
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