Fairfax puts timeline on sale of printing presses

Fairfax Media hopes to complete the sale of its two major print plants, Tullamarine in Melbourne and Chullora in Sydney, by the end of May.

The sites will be sold by vacant possession, with Fairfax expecting to exit both facilities by mid-2014, selling agents CBRE and Colliers International said.

Fairfax will transfer the printing of its respected metropolitan mastheads The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review to regional presses following the Herald and Age's shift to a Monday-to-Friday compact format.

Agents would not be drawn on the expected sale price of the Tullamarine and Chullora sites but BusinessDay has previously reported the company hopes to net about $65 million for both.

The Age's print facility is on the Tullamarine Freeway, about two kilometres from Melbourne Airport.

Its modern five-storey, architect-designed, ribbed-steel building was opened a decade ago by then Premier Steve Bracks. It cost about $220 million. Nearly 2 million newspapers and sections are loaded on to trucks there each week.

The larger Chullora plant includes a 37,600-square-metre print complex on a parcel of land totalling 10.28 hectares. It produces copies of the daily newspapers, sections, weekly editions of The Sun-Herald and Fairfax's community and regional titles.

Colliers International industrial director Tony Iuliano said he expected interest from a range of buyers - industry players such as Goodman, big-box store operators or even car dealerships.