Lloyd's List Australia - Merger and Formation of Lloyd's List DCN

Merger and Formation of Lloyd's List DCN

1998 was a pivotal year for LLAW, and as it transpired, for the DCN. David Gilbertson successfully led a management buyout of LLP and the company was successfully listed on the London Stock Exchange. Now cashed up, LLP made a play to acquire LLAW’s dominating competitor, the DCN. It was a long process and complicated by the decision of LLP to merge with a London-based international conference company, IBC Conferences. This merger was completed at the end of 1998 and resulted in the creation of Informa plc.

Under the Informa banner, the acquisition of the DCN was completed in March 1999 for A$10m. Announcing the purchase, Gilbertson stated "Daily Commercial News is a powerful and long established title in the Australian market. In combination with our weekly publication, Lloyd's List Australian Weekly, the acquisition of DCN will enable Informa to offer an unrivalled information service to the Australian import and export community".

For several weeks following, the DCN and LLAW continued to publish on their normal schedules until the newspapers were merged. On Monday 12 April 1999, the first edition of the now Lloyd’s List DCN was published by an editorial, advertising, subscriptions and production team made up a staff from both the DCN and LLAW. LLAW editor Kevin Chinnery edited the combined publication for a further seven years until the end of 2006 when he joined Business Review Weekly as its weekly editor. Former LLDCN deputy editor Sandy Galbraith edited the publication until September 2007, when he moved into shipping consultancy, and was replaced by LLDCN Sydney correspondent Sam Collyer who edited the paper until July 2010 when he left to pursue a public relations career with Caltex.