Catalano’s ACM sells Launceston print site for $3.5 million
Australian Community Media owners Antony Catalano and Alex Waislitz have sold the former Launceston printing site of The Examiner and The Advocate daily newspapers to Austin Fagan, the owner of national electrical business Progress Switchboards, for $3.5 million.
The Catalano and Waislitz co-owned entity 20 Cashews disclosed the sale of the 231 George Town Road, Rocherlea, site and its expected settlement date of February 15, in filings showing the company posted a $2.5 million net loss last year.
The decision to start printing the papers at a News Corp-owned facility in Hobart from July last year triggered the sale of the 5763-square-metre printing site – and the loss of a reported 29 jobs at the time.
ACM had now sold 21 of the 26 properties it originally had, Catalano told The Australian Financial Review.
The site on Launceston’s industrial strip – which last changed hands in 2014 for $2.2 million – benefited from a “very solid” commercial market with strong demand for logistics facilities, said Elders Commercial agent Rob Dixon, who marketed the property with colleague Fletcher Seymour.
“Northern Tasmania is seen as a distribution centre for the whole of the state of Tasmania,” Dixon told the Financial Review.
“Launceston has become a key location for nationals who operate on a state-wide basis within Tasmania. Stock comes into Burnie and Davenport on the boat, is transported to Launceston and then distributed around the state from there.”
Conditions normalised in the industrial property sector last year after surging in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, but demand remains strong.
The site includes a 2032-square-metre warehouse, a 221-square-metre office and 400-square-metre undercover drive-thru dispatch area.
Fagan’s business, which has its main operations in Perth and Tasmania, was leasing a site and would relocate its operations to the George Town Road property, which was used as a printing site from about 1991.
Before that, it was used by flour producer Four Roses, Dixon said.
