Nine Entertainment has agreed to purchase outdoor advertiser QMS Media for A$850 million, the company announced on Friday, a transaction valued at approximately US$597.7 million. The acquisition is positioned as part of a broader strategic shift toward digital media assets at Nine.
Shares of Nine (ASX:NEC) responded positively to the news, rising as much as 5.5% to A$1.14 during the trading session. That intraday move represented the stock's largest one-day percentage gain since September 12. By comparison, the wider ASX 200 index increased by 0.5% on the same day.
Management framed the QMS Media purchase as an advance toward a stated target of expanding the company's digital asset base to more than 60% of revenue by fiscal 2027, up from about 45% in 2025. The deal is described as consistent with the ongoing reallocation of advertising dollars away from traditional formats and toward online and digital channels.
At the same time as announcing the QMS Media acquisition, Nine said it will divest its broadcast radio business to the Laundy Family Office for A$56 million. Included in the radio assets are Sydney’s 2GB and Melbourne’s 3AW. The buyer is controlled by billionaire Arthur Laundy, whose family runs Australia’s largest privately owned hotel group; the purchase marks an entry into media ownership for the Laundy family despite having no prior media assets.
The sale of the radio division is the latest in a series of material portfolio adjustments at Nine. Roughly a year earlier, the company sold a 60% stake in the property listings platform Domain to U.S. real estate group CoStar.
Company footprint
- Nine publishes The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and operates the Nine Network.
- The QMS Media acquisition and radio divestment are presented as complementary moves in reshaping Nine’s revenue mix toward digital.
The announcements together reflect a two-pronged approach: build and consolidate digital and outdoor advertising capabilities through the QMS Media purchase while exiting broadcast radio ownership via the A$56 million sale. The market reaction on the day of the announcement was a meaningful outperformance of the company stock relative to the broader index.