Brian Banks, editor of Financial Post Magazine since September 2004, has taken a voluntary buyout from parent company Canwest Media. His final day at FP was last Friday.

Banks says he’d been thinking about leaving the magazine before the buyout offer from CanWest went out to employees across the company in December. “It just seemed like the timing was right,” he says.

CanWest’s much-publicized financial trouble wasn’t a big factor in his decision to leave, Banks says, though it did make the buyout possible.

Banks started with Financial Post Magazine as executive editor in 2002 and had previously worked for six years as an editor for Canadian Business. He recently helmed a redesign of the magazine that was unveiled last fall. 

As for what’s next, the 50-year-old says he’s looking “mainly outside journalism, but I’m not ruling out staying within it as well. I’m casting a wide net.” Freelance and consulting jobs—possibly in areas where he can combine his knowledge of business with his interest in environmental and geographical issues—are the most attractive options right now, Banks says. 

Cooper Langford, FP Magazine’s executive editor, will handle day-to-day operations in the interim as CanWest decides how to proceed going forward.