Our History

Long before Stuff became the country's best-known digital news brand, it was a large network of daily, regional and community newspapers deeply embedded in the life of New Zealand towns and cities. One of the oldest, the South Island's The Press brand, celebrates its 165th birthday in 2026.

From the mid 1960s onwards, international ownership bought into the business with Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd taking a stake in what would later become Independent Newspapers (INL) Ltd.

In 2000 the company's first digital news website stuff.co.nz was born, three years before the business was bought entirely by Australia's Fairfax group. For the next 17 years, the business was run locally as Fairfax New Zealand answering to its Australian owners until, on 1 February 2018 Fairfax New Zealand officially changed its name to Stuff Limited.

Boucher had begun her own career as a reporter in a branch office of The Press. Now as Owner and Publisher of Stuff Group, she set about rebuilding the business from the ground up, investing in new technology and talent and setting the business on a bold 'follow no one' strategy.

Committed to editorial independence and with a mission to have a tangible, positive impact on the lives of all New Zealanders, Stuff Group launched new subscriber news sites for its heritage newspaper brands, began producing the 6pm ThreeNews television bulletin and delivered on new live sports partnerships with the America's Cup and the Fifa Women's World Cup. In 2025, marketplace giant Trade Me took a 50% stake in the company's Stuff Digital Ltd subsidiary.

Under Boucher, Stuff Group has set a new course for strong, independent journalism in New Zealand with a broad range of news, lifestyle and agricultural brands and a growing Stuff Events business. Stuff Events owns and manages public events including one of Australasia's largest, the national Round the Bays fun-run series, and the annual Central Districts Field Days agricultural show.

Stuff.co.nz is the country's largest New Zealand website and Stuff Group has the largest print readership. Its flagship subscriber site, The Post, is New Zealand's fastest growing national news brand centred on politics, power and the economy, and Stuff owns the country's only homegrown social network, Neighbourly.

Today Stuff Group honors its heritage as it sets a course firmly focused on the future. It continues to imagine and to shape what a fearless and ambitious media company can be.