Business News looks back on three decades, thousands of pages and 26 million words, as work starts on delivering the next 1,000 editions.
Business News has steadily built its brand over decades, and this week celebrates a little bit of publishing history.
It’s our 1,000th print issue.
That milestone reflects more than three decades of publishing, thousands of deadlines and a newsroom that has grown and evolved with Western Australia’s business community.
The scale of the achievement is hard to ignore. Across 1,000 editions, Business News’s journalists and production team have printed more than 68,000 unique pages, filled with close to 26 million words.
Placed one on top of the other, those 68,000 pages would stand almost seven metres high and weigh as much as a grand piano.
The publication has interviewed thousands of Perth business leaders during the past 32 years, and its print history tells the story of WA’s changing economy: the booms, the busts and the businesses that defined them.
Yet the real story goes beyond the numbers.
Former Rio Tinto chief executive Sam Walsh, who subscribed to Business News in 2007, said the magazine had been a vehicle to provide a voice for WA businesses.
“Back then, the opposition [WA daily newspaper] had one business page,” Mr Walsh said of the magazine’s early days.
“Business News filled a huge gap in the market.”
Mr Walsh was one of the first to provide a client testimonial when Business News was starting out, and he recalls being a strong supporter of the publication, even from overseas.
“It kept me in touch with what was happening on the ground back home when I was running Rio Tinto from London,” Mr Walsh said.
“And it was useful beyond business; I followed charities, arts and community through its coverage.”
History
Business News was the passion project of Harry Kleyn, a former Community Newspaper Group partner who wanted to provide an independent voice for WA companies.
He teamed up with Vanguard Press in the early 1990s, setting up shop in the printer’s offices and developing plans for a free, fortnightly newspaper that would circulate in the CBD.
The newspaper was the first iteration of the modern publication.
Business News finance manager, Janet Veldhuis, has been there since the beginning.
“I used to work for both Harry and Vanguard in the early days,” Ms Veldhuis said.
“But when things started to change, I had to make a decision: do I stay with the printing company, which was the stable option, or go with my heart and stay with the paper?”
Ms Veldhuis went with the second option, later helping Business News find its first dedicated home on Beaufort Street.
“Walking into those offices felt like a big step,” she said.
“It was still pretty close quarters then, but there was room to grow.”
WA was a different place in 1992, when the first edition of Business News hit the terrace.
Richard Court was about to be elected, drawing a line under the WA Inc. years and the corporate misdemeanours that defined the era.
Back then, state mining and petroleum royalties totalled just $373 million; a figure dwarfed by today’s numbers.
Just three journalists were employed to compile the newspaper, and deadlines were stared down with black coffee and cut-and-paste layouts.
And there was plenty of business news to chase. SGIO listed, Wesfarmers bought Bunnings, and Bank of Scotland took over Bankwest.
On the resources front, Rio Tinto opened Mesa J, Anaconda Nickel launched Murrin Murrin and construction was only just starting on the Goldfields Gas Pipeline.
Driven to respond to a changing city, it wasn’t long before Business News launched its first special publication.
The Book of Lists provided a new source of data for Perth business leaders and soon became a useful tool in many boardrooms and offices across Perth.
“Someone would buy the book and we’d take the information, burn it onto a CD and send it out to subscribers,” sales director Marec van Wyk said.
“The Book of Lists gave subscribers extra value and has remained part of the package two decades on.”
By the early 2000s, it became clear that the Business News model had room to grow.
The company brought new investors and management on board to shepherd the paper’s growth, expanding to host events like the inaugural 40under40 Awards and Rising Star awards.
The newspaper also underwent major change, moving from a fortnightly publishing cycle to a weekly distribution.
Ultimately, that shift brought with it more stories, faster deadlines and a bigger newsroom.
Ms Veldhuis said those first 10 years laid the foundations for what Business News has become.
“We held events in all sorts of places: Parliament House, construction sites, even among shipping containers at Fremantle,” she said.
“It was a daring time, and we had to be more daring as a company.”
Long-time subscriber Mr Walsh also saw a shift in the publication’s scope.
“The magazine had broadened out, tracking projects and people who were shaping the state,” he said.
By 2003, Business News had grown from three reporters to a team of seven, including experienced journalists Mark Pownall and Mark Beyer, who remain part of the organisation to this day.
With extra firepower, Business News branched out to cover sectors in more depth and with more consistency.
Subscriptions had also started to reshape the business. In 2002, Business News began the slow conversion from free circulation to a paid model, although the transition would prove a years-long project.
“Our very first subscription was charged at $195 a year,” Mr van Wyk recalled.
“By the time I joined in 2011, it was $395, and we had not quite 500 subscribers. In fact, most of our requests still came through the fax machine.”
The launch of the new model coincided with the early stages of a resources boom in WA.
Andrew Forrest founded Fortescue Metals Group in 2003, and Rio Tinto and BHP were committing billions to new mines and port expansions.
By 2007, state royalties were above $2 billion, and Perth house prices were pushing towards $500,000.
Then came the GFC of 2008. Markets fell, projects were delayed, and Bankwest was sold to Commonwealth Bank.
Fortunately, however, WA’s economy held up, fuelled by growing commodity demand out of China.
For Business News, it meant covering both the uncertainty and the resilience that defined that period.
“It was often a tough journey in those days, but the staff believed in what we were doing,” Ms Veldhuis said.
Mr Walsh noted the paper’s approach to reporting was just as important as the stories themselves.
“Even when an organisation was in strife, Business News was constructive,” he said.
By 2012, things were starting to look up. WA royalties had passed $7 billion, Gina Rinehart was building Roy Hill, Fortescue was refinancing and Sandfire’s DeGrussa copper mine had opened.
At the end of those four years, Business News had matured along with the marketplace. Spurred on by the first round of subscriptions and a growing events program, the magazine had shifted from a startup to a fully fledged, independent publication.
More change was on the cards in 2013, re-emerging as a glossy, coffee table magazine that would support a new range of podcasts and email roundups.
The Book of Lists also got a facelift, going fully digital as the foundation for BNiQ: a searchable database of companies and executives.
Even as the focus shifted to online, print was, and remains, the backbone of the business.
The publication returned to a fortnightly distribution in 2016.
“Print was never dead for us,” Mr van Wyk said.
“Our subscribers valued having something tangible in their hands, and that kept the model alive.”
Reframing
Numerous opportunities were being developed across WA through the 2010s. Chevron poured $54 billion into its Gorgon project, Inpex delivered Ichthys, Qantas started direct flights to London and Optus Stadium was built.
But there were failures, too, in a difficult time for some in Perth’s business landscape. First Quantum shut Ravensthorpe, Griffin Coal collapsed and Clough was sold.
By the end of the decade, Business News had found its feet as more than a publishing house, with a high-profile events calendar complementing the business-tobusiness connections that are part of the company’s ethos.
Then came Covid, and the pandemic was quick to accelerate the next transition.
With the virus keeping readers at home (and engaged solely online), Business News launched a new website and rebranded its BNiQ platform as Data & Insights.
A full refresh followed in 2021 as WA’s royalties reached a staggering $13 billion, lithium and hydrogen moves became front-page stories, and major projects such as Fortescue’s Iron Bridge and Chevron’s Elizabeth Quay headquarters came online.
Business News moved its office from Northbridge to St Georges Terrace, bringing its journalists closer to Perth’s corporate core, and launched its annual Power 500 and Rich 100 publications.
Looking ahead
By 2024, the magazine had developed the largest team of business-focused reporters in the state. So, with more journalists to report on all things business in WA, what’s in store for the next 1,000 editions?
For Mr van Wyk, the answer lies with keeping print at the core.
“It’s crazy to think of where we could even be by edition 2,000; it’s going to be completely different again,” he said.
“But I hope we stick with print, that we keep something alive that others continue to move away from.”
Mr Walsh also wants the fundamentals to remain the same.
“The value of Business News is giving real-time insights into what’s happening in WA,” he said.
“It gives businesses in the state a real voice.”
Of course, no-one can say for sure what the next few decades hold.
However, it’s a certainty that new platforms will emerge, business cycles will continue to rise and fall, and the way readers consume information will keep shifting.
