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Rev Asia culls titles, cuts staff
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17:
Southeast Asian Internet firm Catcha, which saw its ambitions to be a major search engine evaporate amid the dotcom bust at the turn of the millennium, is now finding its foray into magazine publishing crumbling into dust too.
Its listed Malaysian arm Rev Asia Bhd (formerly Catcha Media Bhd) is culling several of its publishing and digital titles to reduce operational costs after the last few quarters saw its pretax losses rising drastically.
All in all, four print magazines – Stuff, Fairways, Mint and Clive – will disappear from the shelves soon, as will three purely online titles Business Insider, Signature Asia and Stuff.tv/my.
What remains are titles like Says, Juice, Hanger, 8share and the recently acquired OhBulan!.
Staff employed on the titles to be discontinued will be either laid off or redeployed to its remaining titles.
Source said the management reason given in an internal memo for shutting down the magazines is to offset costs involving last year’s merger of Says Sdn Bhd and Catcha Media.
Rev Asia was formed in 2013 after the merger of Catcha Media and Says via a US$20 million (RM69.98 million) deal.
Catcha Media was listed on Bursa Malaysia in 2010 with Star Publications (M) Bhd having a 4.99% stake in the firm.
Earlier this year, Rev Asia struck a deal with Business Insider to operate its Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean units.
The firm had also earlier struck an exclusive sales representation agreement with HCK Media Sdn Bhd, which publishes numerous titles including business weekly Focus Malaysia.
It acquired Malay entertainment website OhBulan! in October to gain a foothold within the Malay media industry.
In its Bursa fillings, Rev Asia’s revenue in the fourth quarter ended Sept 30, 2014 fell 23.25% to RM6.65 million from RM8.67 million in the corresponding period in 2013.
Its pretax loss grew to RM1.88 million in the fourth quarter from RM1.47 million before.
Its full year revenue as at Sept 30, 2014 saw a 19.87% drop at RM20.51 million as compared to 2013’s RM25.15 million.
