The wife of media mogul Antony Catalano has been left shaken after her husband was charged with assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill a woman.
“I’m really not ready. I’m dealing with a lot right now with my family,” Stefanie Catalano told this masthead, adding she did not wish to make any further comment on the matter.
Two weeks ago, the couple were celebrating their 14th wedding anniversary with friends in Byron Bay, where they have a home and where Antony Catalano owns luxury beach resort Raes on Wategos. Those celebrations came after the couple had reconciled following a temporary separation.
But late last week, Catalano, the executive chair of Australian Community Media and owner of classified group View Media, was charged by Victoria Police with dragging a woman around an apartment by her hair and ankles and swinging a clothes iron at her head, in an alleged assault that left her with a broken coccyx.
He was released on bail and, in a statement, said he would immediately check in to a rehabilitation facility.
The alleged victim has not been identified.
“I am deeply ashamed and humiliated,” Antony Catalano said in a statement. The father of nine is stepping aside from all professional obligations for at least six months.
In an additional statement released on Sunday afternoon, ACM’s board and executive leadership said it was “shocked and deeply concerned by the serious allegations” regarding Catalano.
“Mr Catalano is facing charges involving alleged violence towards a woman. While these are allegations that will be determined by the court, violence against women is entirely against the values of our company and our mastheads,” the statement said.
“We acknowledge Mr Catalano’s statement about his health. However, the company’s first priority is the wellbeing of its people. Our thoughts are with all those affected by this matter.”
For years, the man known in media circles as “The Cat” (a nickname often followed by references to his “nine lives”) earned a reputation as a brash, hard-partying operator, the kind of executive for whom Martin Scorsese’s epic tale of corporate excess, The Wolf of Wall Street, served as an inspiration rather than a cautionary tale.
In 2015, Catalano used a clip of Leonardo DiCaprio’s drug-fuelled main character, Jordan Belfort, to rev up the troops at a Domain sales conference when he was chief executive of the property classified group.
Conversations with more than a dozen senior media insiders who have worked alongside, and sometimes locked horns with, Catalano during a tumultuous career, reveal a complicated picture – a talented, often charming executive with an entrepreneurial flair whose penchant for the good times could sometimes become a distraction and who oversaw a sexist workplace culture while chief executive of Domain.
A former property editor turned executive at The Age, Catalano responded to being made redundant by Fairfax Media (then owner of this masthead) in 2008, by starting The Weekly Review, a rival free glossy property magazine.
It became such a hit that Fairfax would eventually buy the upstart back off Catalano, picking up half his Metro Media Publishing Holdings in 2011 for $35 million and the rest for $72 million in 2015. Catalano returned to Fairfax triumphant in 2013, as chief executive of Domain.
Four years after his return, he was ringing the bell at the Australian Securities Exchange, as Domain went public with a $2.2 billion market capitalisation. But beneath the veneer of Catalano’s extraordinary turnaround at Domain, questions about internal culture were beginning to percolate, particularly as the #MeToo movement picked up steam around the time of the float in late 2017.
Less than two months after the float, the then Fairfax and Domain chair, Nick Falloon, received dozens of complaints about misbehaviour and a sexist culture at the company’s Melbourne offices. Catalano denied any wrongdoing, but in January 2018, he abruptly resigned as Domain boss, citing family reasons.
Complaints made to the human resources department at Domain accused Catalano of overseeing a boys’ club, where women were referred to as “babe” and “doll”, and urged to smile more by male colleagues. There was frequent discussion of drug use at lavish office parties.
Numerous industry figures who have worked with Catalano cited his immense ambition and strong business acumen. They said he was able to separate a highly competent professional persona from an often frenetic social life.
Catalano’s ambition was such that in 2018, he launched an audacious, ultimately doomed eleventh-hour bid to scupper a planned takeover of Fairfax Media by Nine, owner of this masthead, even unsuccessfully challenging the planned merger in the Federal Court.
By 2019, Catalano was back in business, buying Nine’s regional newspaper network for $115 million with the backing of billionaire investor Alex Waislitz, in a bundle which included mastheads such as The Canberra Times and The Newcastle Herald.
Waislitz, who is currently travelling in the United States, is expected to acknowledge the incident, and provide further guidance on the future of ACM imminently.
Under Catalano’s leadership, ACM has sold off multiple titles and moved to reduce print production.
This masthead reported there has been mounting speculation about a sale of ACM’s publishing assets, speculation which intensified after Catalano’s arrest.
Meanwhile, past business associates of Catalano said his behaviour in recent years had become increasingly erratic, marked by a rise in aggression. Last year, police were called after an altercation between Catalano and celebrity jeweller Giovanni D’Ercole outside Catalano’s Raes hotel in Byron Bay. Police decided not to take further action.
And according to posts in a local Northern Rivers Facebook group reported by The Australian Financial Review, Catalano was accused of “aggressively confronting” a woman over a car parking space (Catalano called the matter “outrageous nonsense”).
On Friday, Melbourne Magistrates’ Court heard Catalano recently experienced a mental health episode at his Byron Bay home and was admitted to a psychiatric ward last month after using drugs.
“It is believed approximately three days ago at his property in Byron Bay, the accused himself called police because he believed he was seeing people emerging from the woodworks around his property,” a police officer told the court.
Catalano was granted bail despite police requesting it be denied. He is next due in court on May 11.
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Kishor Napier-Raman is a senior business writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Previously he worked as a CBD columnist and reporter in the federal parliamentary press gallery.Connect via X or email.
Sarah Danckert is a senior reporter who specialises in investigations and corporate wrongdoing. She is a two-time Walkley Award winner, and has won six Quill Awards and two Kennedy Awards.Connect via X or email.
