Pearson acquires GlobalEnglish for $90M

May 25, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Pearson has acquired GlobalEnglish for $90 million in cash.

Founded in 1997 in California, GlobalEnglish is a leading provider of cloud-based, on-demand Business English learning, assessment and performance support software. It serves more than 450 corporate customers, including 20 per cent of the Forbes Global 2000 companies, including General Electric, HSBC, Tata Consultancy Services and Unilever. Its product suite is uniquely suited to serve the needs of global professionals with a comprehensive offering – formal Business English learning coursework, informal and social learning capabilities, performance support tools, an enterprise collaboration platform, a mobile app, assessments and a premium one-on-one coaching service. GlobalEnglish’s Business English content is also entirely focused on the application of Business English to real life business situations such as composing emails and participating in conference calls, and its efficacy is highly rated by global companies and their employees. Approximately 75 per cent of GlobalEnglish’s more than 200,000 active subscribers are in fast growing economies in Latin America and Asia.

GlobalEnglish complements Pearson’s adult English language training business, Wall Street English, by enabling Pearson to expand more rapidly into the corporate market with cost-effective and scalable cloud-based Business English software solutions and to offer the world’s pre-eminent companies a full suite of relevant products and services.

In 2011 GlobalEnglish generated revenues of approximately $42m with high renewal rates. The company has more than 200 employees across more than 20 countries and has product development offices in Silicon Valley (USA), India and Korea. Pearson will be expensing integration costs relating to GlobalEnglish in 2012 and expects the acquisition to enhance adjusted earnings per share and to generate a return on invested capital above Pearson’s weighted average cost of capital from 2013, its first full year.

John Fallon, Chief Executive of Pearson’s International education business, said, “The rise of English as a global language of business continues. This acquisition enables Pearson to play a much more systematic role in meeting the need of major companies around the world for quality, effective, scalable and relevant English language learning. We can combine services, technology, brands and content from across the Pearson family with the GlobalEnglish product portfolio to enrich the learning experience and enhance further the effectiveness of the teaching.”

UK, London &  USA, Silicon Valley, CA

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UBM Aviation Routes Limited acquires Airlineroute.net

May 20, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

UBM Aviation Routes Limited has acquired Airlineroute.net, an online blogging website for route development scheduled changes. Airlineroute.net is the airline network planning community’s top blogging site and it is used by thousands of airline network planners and airport aviation professionals each day.

The blog will be integrated into the news section of Routesonline, the online route development forum and official website of Routes, which has, since its re-launch in May 2008, been a central source of route development information to airports and airlines.

Routesonline also allows airports to promote their market opportunities and airlines to access one resource for all their market data and route development information, as well as being a key source of route development news and analysis through their HUB newsletter.

David McMullen, Business Development Director of Routesonline stated “Airlineroute.net is the most highly regarded source of airline route development news and is currently used by over 800 companies, the synergies between this site and the Routes brand are clear and we are delighted to offer our clients this tool to track changes in airline schedules.”

Routesonline has developed year on year since its inception in 2008, it now offers its 18,000 registered users not only industry and event news but also the unique Route Exchange facility which is where airports and airlines create profiles.  Airlines post available aircraft capacity and airports can send proposals direct to the airlines  Airline users also have direct access to Route Exchange airport profiles, which have full airport intelligence and allow contacts to be made before or after Routes events. The Route Exchange also facilitates an online Request for Proposals (RFP) process where airlines use the Route Exchange to request for proposals from airports to assist them in their network developments plans. This facility was only introduced last year and has already had Air Asia X, Scoot and Indigo airlines participate with further RFPs planned for later in the year.

UK, London & Estonia, Tallinn

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Wilmington Group acquires Millennium ADMP

May 18, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Wilmington Group Plc, the professional information and training group, has aquired the business and certain assets of Millennium ADMP Ltd which is in administrative receivership (the “Business”), for a cash consideration of £465,000.

The Business was acquired by Wilmington Millennium Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wilmington formed for the purpose of making the acquisition. Wilmington will fund the consideration from existing debt facilities.

The Business provides information and services to the insurance market and provides data and sales services to Smee & Ford Ltd another wholly owned Wilmington subsidiary. During the year ended 30 June 2011, the Business made profits before interest, tax and amortisation of £0.4 million on turnover of £5.9 million. The Business has gross assets of approximately £0.9 million.

Charles Brady, CEO of Wilmington, commented “We are pleased to have been able to rescue one of our trading partners and secure the continuing employment of their staff. For Wilmington the acquisition represents an opportunity not only to secure the continued support for the activities of Smee & Ford but to benefit from the services which Millennium provides to a number of major insurance companies”.

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UK, London

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Smiths News acquires Hedgelane

May 18, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Smiths News PLC, the UK based wholesaler of newspapers, magazines and books, has acquired Hedgelane Limited whose principal subsidiary trades as The Consortium for Purchasing and Distribution Limited, a UK specialist distributor of consumable products to the educational market, for an aggregate consideration of £38.0m, equivalent to an enterprise value of £44.1m.

The aggregate consideration comprises £32 million of initial cash consideration to be financed through existing available debt facilities, up to £2 million of deferred consideration payable in cash in January 2013 dependent on certain conditions and to be financed through available existing debt facilities, and up to £4 million of deferred consideration payable in Smiths News PLC shares in January 2014 dependent on certain conditions.

The Consortium is a profitable, cash generative business that is expected to add an additional £64 million sales and £7 million EBITDA to Smiths News PLC on a proforma FY12 basis.  The transaction is immediately EPS accretive and will generate returns significantly above the Group’s cost of capital.

UK, Swindon, Wiltshire

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TX AIM Media Texas, LLC acquires Texas newspapers

May 18, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

TX AIM Media Texas, LLC is to acquire the Texas print and online newspaper publishing assets from Freedom Communications, Inc., of Irvine, California.Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. AIM has announced that all Freedom employees at the publications in Texas will continue in their respective jobs and positions with the new company.

The publications and affiliated web sites included in the transaction include daily newspapers in McAllen (The Monitor and http://www.themonitor.com), Harlingen (Valley Morning Star and http://www.valleymorningstar.com), Brownsville (The Herald and http://www.browsvilleherald.com), Brownsville (El Nuevo Heraldo and http://www.elnuevoheraldo.com) and Odessa (The American and http://www.oaoa.com); one 2X-weekly in Weslaco (Mid-Valley Town Crier and http://www.midvalleytowncrier.com); one weekly serving South Padre Island and Port Isabel (Coastal Current and http://www.spislandbreeze.com); and, a variety of other weekly and monthly publications and related web sites.

“Freedom Communications is one of the most respected and admired publishing and media  organizations in the United States,” said Jeremy L. Halbreich, Chairman & CEO of AIM. “I have had the pleasure and good fortune of knowing many of the family members, Board members and senior executives at Freedom over the years and so we are very flattered to have this opportunity to become directly involved with these important, high-quality, local journalism organizations,” he added.

“The attractiveness of these properties is entirely due to their strong performance and the hard work of their associates,” said Freedom CEO Mitch Stern. “The sale furthers our goal of providing value to our shareholders while at the same time increasing the financial strength of Freedom”.

USA, Dallas, TX & Irvine, CA

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Hubert Burda UK chief buys Love It! and Full House!

May 17, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

According to The Press Gazette, the chief executive of Hubert Burda Media UK, Luke Patten, has bought the company’s real-life titles Love It! and Full House!

HBM said the magazines had been sold to a company called Pep Publishing, which according to a Companies House report was incorporated in February with Patten as sole director.

A spokesman for HBM said Patten would continue in his role as chief executive of the company, confirming that Pep Publishing was not a subsidiary of HBM but wholly-owned by Patten.

Under the terms of the sale all current stuff will be transferred to Pep Publishing and no redundancies are anticipated.

The sell-off means HBM now has five titles in its portfolio: Your Home, Wedding Magazine, Wedding Flowers, Essential Kitchen Bathroom Bedroom, and the recently launched lifestyle magazine LandLove.

In a statement, Fabrizio D’angelo, head of Hubert Burda International, said: “We are concentrating on our growing UK portfolio of monthly titles with a continuing strategy of acquisition and international group launches. We wish Pep every success.”

UK, Essex

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Ziff Davis Acquires ComputerShopper.com

May 14, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Technology media company Ziff Davis has acquired ComputerShopper.com, a destination for expert, labs-based reviews and comparison shopping of technology products.

Computer Shopper has long been an authoritative voice in the hardware and software industries, initially as a print publication and today as a website attracting over 1.5 million unique visitors per month.

The fifth acquisition for Ziff Davis since the beginning of 2011, ComputerShopper.com gives the fast growing digital media company yet another influential property that plays a critical role in guiding technology buyers in their purchase decisions.

Founded in 1979, Computer Shopper was a Ziff Davis property from 1993-2001 when it was sold to CNET. SX2 Media Labs, which purchased Computer Shopper from CNET in 2006, is now selling it back to Ziff Davis.

“We’re thrilled to be bringing Computer Shopper back into the Ziff Davis portfolio as a digital business with a very devoted audience,” said Vivek Shah, CEO of Ziff Davis. “ComputerShopper.com perfectly fits our mission to inform and influence buyers of technology.”

ComputerShopper.com will join PCMag.com, ExtremeTech.com, Geek.com, Toolbox.com and LogicBuy.com in Ziff Davis’ group of owned-and-operated properties.

USA, New York, NY

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Thomson Reuters sells its Healthcare business to Veritas for $1.25bn

April 23, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Thomson Reuters is to sell its Healthcare business to an affiliate of Veritas Capital for $1.25 billion in cash. The sale is expected to close in the next few months. The sale is not subject to any financing condition. Veritas has obtained debt financing commitments for the transaction.

The Healthcare business provides data, analytics and performance benchmarking solutions and services to hospitals, health systems, employers, health plans, government agencies and healthcare professionals. With leading assets and solutions such as MarketScan, Advantage Suite, Micromedex, CareDiscovery and ActionOI, coupled with expert services and analysis, the Healthcare business provides its customers with solutions to identify savings, improve outcomes, fight fraud and abuse and more efficiently manage their healthcare operations.

“We are proud of our colleagues who built a very strong Healthcare business,” said James C. Smith, chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters. “I know they will continue to serve their customers with the same high standards under new ownership. With the completion of the divestiture, Thomson Reuters will be even more focused on our core global businesses.”

“The Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters is the preeminent healthcare analytics company in the industry today,” said Robert McKeon, chairman of Veritas Capital. “The acquisition will provide us with a unique and exciting opportunity to add a truly outstanding business and world-class management team to our portfolio and we look forward to building upon our experience in the healthcare analytics market. We look forward to welcoming the business and its talented employees, including its talented management team led by Mike Boswood, into the Veritas family.”

“We are excited to become part of Veritas Capital. Veritas is committed to helping us continue to grow and expand our business and our customers should expect the same level of high quality services after the transaction closes,” said Mike Boswood, president of the Healthcare business.

Morgan Stanley and Allen & Company are acting as financial advisors to Thomson Reuters for the proposed divestiture. Covington & Burling LLP is acting as legal counsel for Thomson Reuters.

USA, New York, NY

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Argus acquires Fundalytics

April 19, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Energy and commodity price reporting agency Argus has acquired Fundalytics, a specialist European natural gas fundamentals data service. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Founded in 2009, Fundalytics compiles, cleans and publishes fundamental data for European natural gas markets. Data sets include supply and demand, inventories, interconnector flows, nominations, allocations and many other types of key information useful for planning and analysis. Data are available on an intra-day basis and can be delivered in multiple formats.

Argus Media chairman and chief executive Adrian Binks said: “Fundalytics data are a complementary service to the pricing and analysis services provided by Argus for international natural gas markets. This acquisition means that Argus can provide a fuller service to our clients. Argus prices are already used extensively as benchmarks in physical and derivative contracts for natural gas and other forms of energy. High quality fundamentals data will add a further valuable information source.”

Fundalytics director Chris Dodds said: “I am very pleased to be working with Argus. Argus has the price reporting expertise and analysis skills that will help to develop our data services further. The two companies together will be be able to offer a first-rate full service to our complementary client and prospect databases.”

UK, London

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DMGT – trading update for the six-month period to the end of March 2012

April 17, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

DMGT has issued an update on the Group’s progress in the current year. It covers the six-month period to the end of March 2012.

Summary

–       Solid Group revenue performance, up 2% underlying

–       Good underlying growth from B2B operations

–       Resilient revenue performance at Associated; circulation and digital revenue growth largely offsetting print advertising weakness

–       Active portfolio management; targeted acquisitions and disposal of non-core assets

–       Outlook for the year remains unchanged.

 

Acquisition activity

Active portfolio management has seen further bolt-on acquisitions, including:

–       Intelliworks – a top provider of relationship management solutions for higher education (dmgi – Hobsons)

–       PrepMe – a leader in adaptive learning technologies and test preparation programs (dmgi – Hobsons)

–       SpringRock – a cutting-edge provider of dynamic production forecasts for the oil & gas industry (dmgi – Genscape)

–       Global Grain Geneva and Global Grain Asia – international grain trading conferences (Euromoney) (A Fusion deal – click here for details)

–       Jobrapido – one of the world’s largest job search engines (Associated -Evenbase)

This continuing portfolio management activity has also seen A&N Media selling its interests in Top Consultant, motors.co.uk and Teletext.

Yesterday, the Office of Fair Trading gave clearance for the proposed merger between the Digital Property Group and Zoopla to go ahead.

Read the full announcement here

UK, London

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