NZX has snapped up an Australian grain forecast service, further adding to its publishing stable.

This morning NZX announced its acquisition of the business assets of Melbourne-based Australian Crop Forecasters.

The service publishes monthly subscription reports on Australian grain supply and demand. This comes after buying Clear Grain Exchange in October, an electronic market for grain trading in Australia. In October 2008, bought ProFarmer, an agricultural intelligence service.

NZX's rights issue prospectus details the motives behind its $33 million spend-up, which includes the controversial purchase of a rural publisher.

The stock exchange operator has three acquisitions underway: electricity and gas market operator M-Co, a 50.1% stake in Australian stock exchange company NSX and Country-Wide Publications.

The total cost of these is $33.7 million (at current exchange rates, as the NSX transaction is priced in Australian dollars).

The editor at one of NZX’s media subsidiaries says it has been business as normal since the stock exchange operator took over.

Newsroom.co.nz editor Peter Fowler says the division has editorial independence and no-one from other NZX divisions has ever asked for articles to be changed.

Earlier this week publisher Max Bowden wrote to the Commerce Commission questioning the ethics of NZX buying Country-Wide Publications and whether it was a conflict of interest.  "The NZX is supposed to be a market regulator, not a promoter of its own propaganda," he wrote.

NZX is ramping up its rural resources with the acquisition of farming publishing company Country-Wide Publications.

NZX revealed today that it has entered into a term sheet and is finalising an
agreement to acquire the rural publisher, which chief executive Mark Weldon describes as an “excellent strategic addition to NZX's set of rural information businesses" and a long-term investment in the rural sector.