Pilot magazine acquires Today’s Pilot

Pilot magazine, the UK’s biggest-selling general aviation magazine, has acquired Today’s Pilot from Key Publishing.

Pilot magazine has been published for over 40 years and covers everything from gliders, microlights and helicopters to private, business and commercial fixed-wing flying. Today’s Pilot has been published for ten years and is particularly popular among student pilots.

Today’s Pilot Editor Dave Unwin will join the newly formed Pilot team, headed by Group Editor Nick Wall and Associate Editor Philip Whiteman. Unwin will become Pilot’s Flight Test Editor and also work on the Today’s Pilot section within Pilot. The first combined issue of Pilot incorporating Today’s Pilot will be the April issue, on sale March 2.

UK, Berkshire

Axel Springer and SeLoger.com agree on a revised offer at €38.05

Following an agreement reached between the two groups, Axel Springer is to file a friendly revised offer for the shares of SeLoger.com at a price of €38.05 per share. This price represents a premium of nearly 12% compared to the price of the initial offer filed by Axel Springer on 28 September 2010.

The Revised Offer will include a minimum acceptance threshold, set at 50.01% (including Axel Springer’s current 12.4 % stake) of the share capital and voting rights of SeLoger.com, below which the Offer will be unsuccessful.

Ralph Buechi, President Axel Springer International at Axel Springer AG said: “The agreement paves the way for a transaction based on mutual consent between Axel Springer and the Board and management of SeLoger.com. Our intention has been friendly from the beginning, and we strongly believe that it is in the best interest of all parties involved that we move ahead on agreed terms. This is especially true for the management and employees of SeLoger.com, who will now be able to fully focus on the business and continue with their excellent work. Following a careful assessment, the recent share price developments of the peer group as well as SeLoger.com’s recent upward revisions of their financial targets led us to reconsider our offer price, which is now even more attractive for the shareholders of SeLoger.com.”

Germany, Berlin & France, Paris

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Experian acquires a majority stake in Techlightenment

Experian, the information services company, has acquired a majority stake in Techlightenment, a UK-based provider of social media marketing tools.

Founded in 2007, Techlightenment is a data-driven technology and marketing business that provides social media marketing services to multinational companies and global advertising agencies. Techlightenment uses its proprietary technology platforms to help its clients market and advertise effectively using social media. Techlightenment’s clients include GlaxoSmithKline, Universal Pictures and Dr Martens.

The acquisition is a further step in Experian’s strategy to grow its digital marketing activities. It extends Experian’s capability into the increasingly important social media channel, adding to Experian’s presence in the online, email and mobile channels.

Techlightenment’s revenue in the year to 28 February 2011 is expected to be approximately £5m, with gross assets at the year-end of £2.5m. The stake in Techlightenment was acquired from its founders. Techlightenment will form part of Experian’s UK Marketing Services division.

Germany, Dusseldorf & UK, London

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Archant has acquired 50% of group deals service Tickles

Hold The Front Page is reporting that regional media business Archant has acquired 50% of Tickles

Tickles is a money saving website which uses the power of online group buying to bring members money saving deals from businesses in their local area.

Tickles was launched in May last year and operates Norfolk and Cambridge. They have 15,000 local members and plan to launch to the rest of the country within weeks.

Read the full story on HTFP

UK, Norwich

RockYou acquires social game developer Playdemic

Social entertainment company RockYou has acquired social game developer Playdemic. Based in Manchester, Playdemic will operate independently as Playdemic, a RockYou studio, and develop Facebook games for the mainstream audience. The acquisition brings extensive game development talent and an established Facebook game, Gourmet Ranch, to the company. Playdemic’s management team has held senior positions at major publishers including Ubisoft, THQ and Eidos. Ian Livingstone, co-founder of Games Workshop and life president of Eidos, was a chief investor in Playdemic. Paul Gouge, CEO and Founder, will lead the studio as VP and General Manager. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
“At RockYou we place great value on the art of game-making,” said Jonathan Knight, RockYou’s SVP of Games, “and we’re elated to welcome the Playdemic team into our studio system. Playdemic will retain their culture and creative control, as they bring their significant game industry experience to making social games of today and tomorrow.”

“Being a part of RockYou gives us the opportunity to remain creatively independent, while leveraging RockYou’s vast network and expertise at scale to reach a wide audience with our games,” Paul Gouge said. “We see a massive opportunity to expand the depth and quality of social games, and have found an ideal partner in RockYou.”

RockYou will grow the user base for Gourmet Ranch, Playdemic’s first title that is currently playable on Facebook with half a million monthly active users. A combined farming and baking simulation, Gourmet Ranch invites players to grow organic crops, raise animals and prepare and serve meals to their friends. Players can use cash to build and decorate their own homestead in a mountain wilderness, trading and helping friends to increase the value of their properties.

USA, Redwood, CA & UK, Manchester

Social commerce site LivingSocial acquires a majority stake in Let’s Bonus

Social commerce site LivingSocial has acquired a majority stake in Let’s Bonus. The partnership bolsters LivingSocial’s rapid international expansion, making it now live in ten countries with the addition of Let’s Bonus’ Spain, Italy, Portugal, Argentina and Mexico presences. LivingSocial now has more than 16 million subscribers, is live in more than 170 markets, and is projected to book in excess of $500 million in revenue in 2011. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The addition of Let’s Bonus to the LivingSocial team is a great opportunity to expand into Latin America and continue our European growth,” said Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder of LivingSocial. “Not only is LivingSocial available in ten countries, but with this acquisition we’ve gone multilingual, offering deals in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. We’re thrilled to expand our footprint with a company that believes in building the same great merchant and consumer relationships that LivingSocial has always upheld.”

Launched in September 2009 in Barcelona, Let’s Bonus helped to pioneer the collective buying movement in Europe and is the leader in the Spanish market. The company offers daily deals with discounts of up to 70% on fun, exclusive activities including gourmet dinners, luxury spas and romantic escapes. Let’s Bonus has a strong management and sales team of more than 200 employees, including local city experts in each market where the company’s daily deals program is live, and offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, Rome, Milan, Lisbon, Buenos Aires and Mexico. Let’s Bonus’ “Planes de Viaje” section, which offers pre-packaged travel deals to users, also naturally supports LivingSocial Escapes’ international expansion.

“LivingSocial is the perfect fit for Let’s Bonus as we share the same goal of offering unique, top notch deals for subscribers,” said Miguel Vicente, founder and CEO of Let’s Bonus. “With LivingSocial’s support, we look forward to growing Let’s Bonus even faster and stronger throughout Europe and in South America.”

In 2010, LivingSocial acquired adventure company Urban Escapes  and has expanded its reach in Australia with a controlling stake in Jump On It.

USA, Washington DC & Spain, Barcelona

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GE acquires Remote Energy Monitoring

GE has acquired Remote Energy Monitoring, Ltd. with operations in Tring, Hertfordshire, UK and in Australia.
 
This acquisition enhances GE’s ability to address the European Union’s goals for a lower-emission, higher efficiency energy infrastructure.  Remote Energy Monitoring’s software and hardware technologies allow consumers and utilities to better monitor and manage their energy usage. 

Remote Energy Monitoring’s metering solutions are approved by UK regulators. The modular design of their solutions make them  field upgradeable,  enabling utilities to integrate new capabilities in the future without the time and expense of switching out meters. 

“Advanced software, flexible systems and robust communications are critical elements in modernizing our infrastructure to meet the world’s energy needs,” said Bob Gilligan, vice president of GE’s Digital Energy business. “The accelerating pace of change of the Energy industry demands flexible, cost effective solutions that can be modified to meet the changing needs.”

GE’s end-to-end hardware, software and communications technologies elevate electric metering beyond simply tracking energy consumption.  The metering solutions support enhancements such as remote activation and disconnect, two-way communications between households and utilities, dynamic pricing structures, pre-paid account management, and energy use adjustments in response to peak pricing events. In addition, robust software and communications enable consumers to receive energy information and control energy usage via PC, TV, smart phone and/or other mobile devices.

“Combining Remote Energy Monitoring’s UK smart metering expertise with GE’s worldwide metering, manufacturing and smart grid leadership will expedite the rollout of this important technology, enabling the UK to lead in this area of energy management and efficiency,” said Gilligan.

“Energy companies can install our new meter solution, with its interchangeable and upgradable modules, with the assurance it can be easily adapted to meet future communications and other technological advancements” said Nigel Rzemieniecki, chief executive officer, Remote Energy Monitoring, Ltd. “Adding GE’s resources helps us continue to strengthen our technology development and broaden the reach of our smart, future-proof solution today.”

The transaction closed on January 11, 2011. The entire Remote Energy Monitoring technology and support team will be joining GE. Headquarters will remain in Tring Hertfordshire, U.K.

UK, Hertfordshire

Research shows smaller buyouts bounce back in 2010

Source – Lyceum Capital and Cass Business School

The total value of smaller private equity buyouts completed during 2010 rose to over £2.5billion, a 150 per cent increase on 2009 levels, according to data from The UK Growth Buyout Dashboard.

The quarterly trend analysis of private equity transactions in the £10 million to £100 million segment produced by Lyceum Capital and Cass Business School shows 68 companies raised an estimated £2,504 million of buyout funding in 2010. This compares with 34 transactions and £1,045 million of funding during the previous 12 months.
The figures provide further evidence that increasing numbers of successful SMEs are seeking private equity investors’ capital and expertise to drive their post-recession expansion plans.

Commenting on the report, Andrew Aylwin, Partner at Lyceum Capital, said: “The long-term investment outlook is positive. There is a bed-rock of SMEs requiring capital to consolidate their performance and complete the transformation into more mature, high-growth enterprises. This growth will ensure the lower mid-market continues to be a highly attractive asset class for private equity investment that is capable of creating consistently strong returns for investors.”

To go to The UK Growth Buyout Dashboard click here

ABB adds business intelligence to software offering with Obvient acquisition

Power and automation technology group, ABB is to acquire Obvient Strategies, a privately owned specialist software provider, adding Obvient’s solutions to its recently acquired Ventyx software portfolio. The transaction will further enhance ABB’s software offering for asset management, power distribution automation and smart grid applications.

Obvient offers software and services for industries and utilities with geographically dispersed assets. The company’s business intelligence software collects, analyzes and reports critical real-time as well as periodic information. This supports decision making and helps users to optimize operations. As well as helping to manage complex operations, the solutions also reduce operating costs and improve asset reliability. Obvient’s unique products compile the power transmission and distribution sector’s best business practices into prepackaged solutions.This enables companies to monitor and manage their distributed assets more effectively, on a real-time and event-driven basis.

“The Obvient portfolio is highly complementary to our own software solutions for the power sector,” said Jens Birgersson, head of ABB’s Network Management business within ABB’s Power Systems division. “It significantly strengthens our software-based solutions, enabling us to provide better service to our customers, from asset health and customer care to distribution and outage management.”

ABB plans to retain the Obvient team and place its executives in key roles within the Ventyx product management organization. The company has offices near Atlanta, Georgia, and a staff of 40.

“We are delighted to join the global ABB family. We have already worked together on a number of projects and joining our complementary portfolios makes perfect sense,” said Ray Kasten, president and CEO of Obvient Strategies. “This move will enable Obvient to enhance support for our rapidly growing customer base while accelerating our product development initiatives.”

Switzerland, Zurich & USA, Atlanta, GA

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Fusion’s fifth deal in the energy services sector: Utility Masters Limited sold to M&C Energy Group

Fusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce our latest deal, the sale of procurement and energy management consultancy Utility Masters Limited (UML) to M&C Energy Group, an energy procurement and compliance specialist. M&C Energy Group are a portfolio company of private equity business, Lyceum Capital.

Fusion Corporate Partners acted as exclusive advisers to the shareholders of UML.  Paul Kelly (pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk) led the transaction at Fusion. It is the fifth energy services sector deal completed by Fusion. Previous deals were:

As previously reported on Fusion DigiNet, Lyceum Capital acquired McKinnon and Clark in January 2010 for £22 million.

This is M&C’s fourth acquisition in just 12 months and will see the Fife-headquartered company’s turnover increase to £40million. Already an established global player in cost analysis, carbon management, energy procurement, bill auditing, energy price risk management and carbon optimisation, the acquisition of UML adds further depth and breadth of expertise to the company’s existing services, innovative energy management solutions and carbon compliance. M&C now manages in excess of £6.25billion of energy consumption each year for 3,500 of the world’s largest energy users across 20 offices in 13 countries.

In 2010, M&C also acquired Australian firm Creative Energy Solutions and German consultancy ETT, increasing its international footprint. Earlier that year it acquired Encore International, a leading provider of energy price risk management services, which handles more than £2billion of procurement annually.

Dan Adler, Partner at Lyceum Capital, said: “This acquisition further highlights our commitment to creating one of the world’s leading energy management consultancies in M&C, with a broad range of complementary services and significant geographical reach. With a well-invested operational infrastructure, high calibre management team and financial muscle, M&C is well-placed to continue its expansion as we identify further opportunities for organic and acquisition-led growth.”

Simon Northrop, CEO of M&C, said: “Utility Masters is a well respected energy consultancy with significant expertise in supply management. This company is a natural fit for our business and supports M&C’s aggressive growth strategy. As the energy consultancy business matures, there will be less of an opportunity for smaller players to compete effectively with the services and product range offered by large international consultancies such as M&C. Our aim is to become a major global provider of energy management services and we are working on a number of further acquisitions, both in Europe and globally, to enable us to deliver on this objective.”

Following the acquisition, UML’s founding partners, Jim McGhie, Shaun McClarnon and Kevin Whaites, will join the M&C team.

Jim McGhie, Managing Director, Utility Masters Limited, said: “M&C is unquestionably one of the world’s leading energy consultancies with a strong reputation for excellence in customer services and product innovation. M&C’s global reach will bring significant benefits to our clients, many of whom require an integrated energy service across many sites worldwide. My partners and I are looking forward to working with M&C to drive forward this strong business.”

Paul Kelly, Director at Fusion, said “We were delighted to work with Jim, Kevin and Shaun. They built a fantastic business which meant we were able to run a highly competitive deal process. Even with all the acquisitions that have taken place in the energy services sector in 2010, it is still a fragmented market where even the biggest global players only have a small market share. We expect to see further consolidation in the market. Fusion continue to be active in the space in 2011”.

UK, Dunfermline and Oldham

Related linksClick here for the Energy Services sector news archive