A Fusion Deal: Incisive Media has sold Accountancy Age and Financial Director to Blenheim Chalcot and its portfolio company Contentive.

October 11, 2015 — Fusion DigiNet

Fusion only - logoFusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce the completion of the sales of two Incisive Media businesses to Blenheim Chalcot and its portfolio company Contentive.

Accountancy Age and Financial Director

accountancy ageFusion Corporate Partners acted as corporate advisor for Incisive Media. The Fusion team was led by Mark Eisenstadt, director at Fusion. The terms of the deals were not disclosed.

Charles Mindenhall, the Blenheim Chalcot co-founder, said: “We are delighted to welcome our new colleagues at Accountancy Age and Financial Director. We are looking forward to continuing to grow and develop these great businesses, serving the accounting and financial director communities worldwide.”

Tim Weller, Chairman & CEO, Incisive Media said: “The founders of Blenheim Chalcot, who recently acquired ClickZ and SES from Incisive Media, have an extraordinary track record of building and developing successful businesses and I could not think of a better new owner of Accountancy Age and Financial Director. Blenheim Chalcot will continue to invest in and develop the brands. I would like to thank the team for their loyalty and hard work over the years and wish them well in their new home.”

Blenheim Chalcot is headquartered in London and traces its roots back to netdecisions, the internet services group founded in 1998. Since then, Blenheim Chalcot has built more than 25 businesses in a variety of sectors, including IT services and outsourcing, financial services, education, travel, software, sport and media. Today, Blenheim Chalcot’s companies have sales of over £300m and employ in excess of 3,000 people. Working with entrepreneurs and co-founders, Blenheim Chalcot continues to create and build businesses in these sectors, often from the ground up, and is now one of the leading venture builders in the world.

Contentive is a digital media company, specialising in B2B publishing and information. It provides an engaging mix of news, events, intelligence and training, across digital marketing, digital finance and other business verticals. Its products and services help professionals excel in a world being transformed by digital – and its tools and platform provide marketers with access to clearly defined audiences.

UK, London

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A Fusion Deal: Accenture acquires EnergyQuote JHA

August 18, 2015 — Fusion DigiNet

EQ logoAccenture has acquired EnergyQuote JHA, a Pan-European energy management and procurement services provider. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Fusion Corporate Partners acted as corporate advisers to the shareholders of Energy Quote JHA. The team was led by Paul Kelly, director at Fusion.

Headquartered in London, EnergyQuote JHA provides services including energy procurement, risk management and strategy development, forecasting, energy contract management, portfolio management, carbon emissions reduction and utility bill management to clients in more than 22 European countries.

“Clients are increasingly seeking a single provider of energy procurement and management services that can address the full spectrum of needs – from reducing demand and risk to improving pricing and payment accuracy – across all geographies,” said Mike Salvino, group chief executive, Accenture Operations. “This acquisition will extend Accenture’s industry leading position in the procurement market and enhance our ability to provide comprehensive energy management services, putting us in an even better position to provide innovative business process services that deliver business outcomes to our clients.”

“Since its founding in 1992, EnergyQuote JHA has developed specialized technology and expertise in key areas that complement Accenture’s existing energy procurement and management offerings,” said Jonathan Lydiard-Wilson, CEO, EnergyQuote JHA. “This agreement with Accenture will benefit the clients of both companies, combining our proprietary technology and extensive energy market intelligence with Accenture’s own industry leading procurement capabilities and global reach.”

EnergyQuote JHA has 279 employees in offices across Europe including the UK and Romania, as well as India.

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A Fusion Deal: Global Technology Forum sold to Clarion 

July 27, 2015 — Fusion DigiNet

Fusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce the sale of Global Technology Forum to Clarion.

Fusion Corporate Partners acted as corporate advisor for Incisive Media. The Fusion team was led by Paul Slight, director at Fusion. The terms of the deals were not disclosed.

For over 20 years, Global Technology Forum has provided the international oil refining and petrochemical community with an invaluable forum for networking, ideas sharing and contact building. The flagship European Refining Technology Conference (ERTC) Annual Meeting is recognised as the leading downstream event in Europe.

Global Technology Forum has long standing relationships with all of the oil majors, independent refiners, national oil companies and petrochemical operators.

UK, London

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Two Fusion Deals in Two Days: The sale of energyTEAM and ENER-G Procurement

April 17, 2015 — Fusion DigiNet

Fusion only - logoFusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce the completion of the sale of two energy management services companies (and the third Fusion completion in the last month).

energyTEAM Limited and ENER-G Procurement Limited

Fusion Corporate Partners acted as corporate advisor for the vendors of both companies. The Fusion team was led by Paul Kelly, director at Fusion.

ET LogoenergyTEAM, a privately owned company based in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, has been running for nearly 40 years. Led by joint managing directors Chris Best and Brian Rickerby, energyTEAM has over 800 UK clients including public and private sector organisations. The company provides an integrated and fully managed energy management service comprising energy procurement and energy services. energyTEAM employs 60 staff. The deal was completed on Thursday 9th April 2015.

ener-gENER-G Procurement, owned by Salford-headquartered international renewable and sustainable energy specialist ENER-G Group, is based in Studley, Warwickshire. ENER-G Procurement was formed through the merger of the energy procurement arm of CMR Consultants and Utility Auditing Limited. Both companies were acquired by ENER-G Holdings plc in 2006 and 2007 respectively. ENER-G Procurement’s clients range from single energy-intensive sites, to large multi-site groups. ENER-G Procurement employs 52 staff. The deal was completed on Friday 10th April 2015.

Both companies were sold to Warrington based procurement services firm Inprova Group. The deals have been funded through a debt facility from Barclays. Investment from private equity house LDC is fuelling Inprova’s growth plans, which consist of a UK and international acquisition strategy focused on technology and category expertise that will complement the existing business. The terms of the deals are not being disclosed.

“It is highly unusual to sell two companies to the same acquirer at almost the same time. Both deals attracted multiple offers from prospective acquirers in two separate competitive processes. However, both vendors selected Inprova Group as their preferred choice,” said Kelly. “Neither vendor knew who the other was and, beside the normal complications of any sale process, the Fusion team also had to ensure confidentiality was maintained at all times. I am proud of the way the team managed these processes and I am delighted at the successful outcomes for both of our clients”.

Inprova Group is based at Olympic Park, in Birchwood, Warrington and has been set up by the founders of purchasing firm CEL Procurement, which has been providing procurement services since 1987, and was rebranded as Inprova in preparation for the group’s ambitious growth strategy. The company launched with Bob Holt as its chairman. Mr Holt drove the expansion and stock market flotation of property repairs giant Mears Group.

“Purchasing these two energy brokers ties in with Inprova’s wider strategy of building scale and capability across new procurement markets.” Commented Inprova group chief executive Paul Kennedy. For many of our customers, utility spend is becoming an increasingly complex and volatile area of spend and as such, they require a greater level of support and guidance in this spend category. The integration of these two businesses into the Inprova Group will enable us to negotiate better energy prices as we’ll take a far larger aggregation of spend to market. It is also likely that there’ll be opportunities for us to deliver wider procurement related services into the enlarged customer base.”

“Inprova Group will be turning over in excess of £12m per year following these two acquisitions.” Kennedy added: “My aim is to at least double this figure over the next two to three years. We’ll do this through our strong customer base in existing markets, which offers significant growth opportunities and also by continuing our ambitious UK and international expansion strategy.”

The Fusion Team has completed over 80 UK and cross border Business Support Services, Energy & Environmental Services, Media, Business Information & Technology, Exhibitions & Conferences, TV Broadcast & Production, Healthcare and Online Commerce transactions. Fusion specialises in the sale of middle-market companies with transactional values ranging from £5 million to £100 million. The sales of energyTEAM Limited and ENER-G Procurement Limited are our 7th and 8th sales of energy management companies.

UK, Warrington, Cheshire & Burgess Hill, East Sussex & Studley, Warwickshire

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A Fusion Deal: Sale of 50.1% stake in Global Pacific & Partners’ worldwide conference portfolio to ITE Group plc

March 13, 2015 — Fusion DigiNet

22 AOWFusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce the sale on behalf of its client Global Pacific & Partners (GPP) of a 50.1% shareholding in their worldwide oil & gas event portfolio to ITE Group Plc, a major London-listed international events company with significant capacity in global oil and gas.

The portfolio of events includes GPP’s market leading Africa Oil Week (AOW) conference held in Cape Town for the last 21 years. AOW incorporates Africa Upsteam and the Africa Independence Forum, other events in the portfolio include established oil & gas events in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

ITE2The cash consideration paid on completion for 50.1% is £16 million, with put and call options in place over a maximum of ten years, to enable ITE to acquire the remainder of the shares. The overall consideration to be capped at a maximum of £50 million.

Fusion acted exclusively for the shareholders of GPP. The shareholder founders and existing organisers of the event, will remain with the portfolio for the next few years at least.

GPP Chairman, Dr Duncan Clarke and CEO, Babette van Gessel said “We are all delighted to join forces with ITE to work together on developing the events in our conference portfolio. ITE has significant capacity and an excellent reputation in global oil and gas to carry forward the growth achieved over the last two decades for our portfolio in Africa, Asia and Latin America.”

ITE Oil &Gas Portfolio Director, Daniel Read said “I am very pleased with the acquisition of a majority stake in a series of events that includes Africa Oil Week/Upstream Africa. It is the jewel in the crown of GPPs portfolio and takes our services to a number of new territories. We have a global network of staff, exhibitions and conferences that will promote Africa Oil Week to a huge worldwide audience. The scale of the industry in Africa and its potential for future growth is enormous. It’s great to know that we will be involved in keeping the leading stakeholders in the continent’s energy community connected and informed. I’m also looking forward to working closely with the team at GPP who have created and nurtured the growth of what has become the leading event for the industry in Africa.”

paul-slight_f_1_120_1Paul Slight, Director at Fusion, said “We were delighted to have worked with Duncan Clarke and Babette van Gessel and the rest of the team at GPP. The Africa Oil Week/Africa Upstream Conference is the longest-running and most prominent event held worldwide for Africa’s fast-growing oil, gas, LNG and energy industry. It will be an excellent fit with ITE’s events portfolio.”

The 22nd Africa Oil Week/Africa Upstream Conference, with the 13th Africa Independents Forum, takes place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 26th-30th October 2015 at the CTICC, with over 100 speakers, 150+ Exhibitors, and around 1,600 delegates.

UK, London & Africa, Cape Town & The Netherlands, The Hague

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A Fusion Deal: UK Health IT exhibition EHealthLIVE sold to Informa PLC

February 26, 2015 — Fusion DigiNet

Informa plc recently purchased EHealth Media and their events: the EHI Awards and the EHI LIVEUK, London Conference and Exhibition at the NEC Birmingham. The UK team is based in London.

Fusion Corporate Partners acted as corporate advisor for EHealth Media. The Fusion team was led by Paul Slight, Director at Fusion. The terms of the deals were not disclosed.

E-Health Media organises high quality events for the UK healthcare IT community. Our expert team creates wide ranging events from small bespoke roundtable discussions up to the UK’s largest exhibition and conference, EHI Live at the NEC, Birmingham. We produce events with fresh, topic driven agendas, which bring together our key industry stakeholders. We create great environments in which our clinical, IT and ehealth professionals can meet up, network and learn and share best practice.

Informa Life Sciences lead the market in providing quality, expert-led conferences; delivering the expert knowledge our clients need to excel in their professional roles and guaranteeing a competitive advantage for their organisations.

As well as the UK IT Healthcare events, our diverse portfolio covers the pharmaceutical, medical devices and diagnostics, fine chemicals and agrochemicals and veterinary medicine sectors. Informa also operates the world’s second largest healthcare exhibition. Arab Health first ran in 1975 and has gone on to be a global must-attend event attracting 66,000 professionals from over 145 countries.

UK, London

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A Fusion Deal: Argus acquires Metal-Pages

May 6, 2014 — Fusion DigiNet

ArgusGlobal energy and commodity price reporting agency Argus has acquired Metal-Pages, a specialist pricing, news and analysis service focusing on speciality metals, rare earths and ferro-alloys. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Metal-Pages was established in 2000 and publishes 230 individual metals prices on a twice-weekly basis. Its coverage is international with a particular strength in Asia, where it operates a Chinese  language website with domestic prices and news. Metal-Pages also has contributors in India, South Africa, the US, South America and Europe, complementing Argus’ global network of offices.

Metal-Pages price assessments are used by producers, consumers and trading companies as a reference price in spot and term contracts as well as to value stock and evaluate new projects and opportunities. In addition to price information, Metal-Pages publishes information on supply and demand fundamentals, news and analysis and runs market-leading conferences. Metals-Pages staff will join Argus’ international team.

 

UK, London

 

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A Fusion Deal: Law Business Research sold to Bowmark Capital

February 11, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

lbrFusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce the sale of specialist legal publisher Law Business Research to Bowmark Capital, the mid-market private equity firm. Bowmark Capital invested alongside the company’s founders, Richard Davey, Callum Campbell and Sebastian O’Meara. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Fusion team was led by Paul Slight.

Established in 1996, Law Business Research (“LBR”) publishes research, data and analysis on international business law and legal markets.  The company produces leading publications in fields such as international anti-trust law, arbitration law and Latin American law, and prides itself on creating essential and unique information for its subscribers in over 100 jurisdictions.

LBR today employs over 100 people in the UK, US and Brazil.  Its portfolio of products spans news publications, know-how guides, legal rankings and events, and includes titles such as “Global Competition Review”, “Global Arbitration Review”, “Getting The Deal Through” and “Latin Lawyer”.  The company serves all the world’s leading law firms and counts a large number of major corporations and regulators among its clients.

The international legal market has grown significantly in recent years, driven by globalisation and the growth in cross-border trade, and this has fuelled the demand for increasingly sophisticated and timely information from the legal profession.  With the backing of private equity, LBR is now seeking to further capitalise on this growth, by expanding both its sector and geographic coverage.

Richard Davey, LBR’s managing director, commented:  “We have ambitious plans to continue developing our business, and to further extend the depth and breadth of our services – while continuing to provide the highest quality content to our subscribers worldwide.  In Bowmark, we have found a supportive and experienced financial partner to help us achieve these goals.”

Bowmark partner, Julian Masters, said:  “LBR is a unique business in a growing market, with an outstanding reputation based on the quality of its content.  We are delighted to be backing Richard Davey and his team in the next stage of the company’s growth.”

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A Fusion Deal: Wilmington Group acquires NHiS

February 11, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

nhis_logo_greyFusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce the acquisition of NHiS Limited by Wilmington Group plc. Fusion acted exclusively for the shareholders of NHiS Limited. The Fusion team responsible for the transaction were led by Mark Eisenstadt.

Wilmington Group will pay an initial cash consideration of £5.6m and a further deferred consideration of up to £3.75m subject to the Business achieving targets for the growth in underlying profit. 

The deferred consideration will be satisfied by issuing of up to 1.5m new Wilmington Group plc shares in October 2016 dependent interwilmington-logo alia upon NHiS’s audited future earnings for the years ended 30th June 2015 and 30th June 2016. The Business was acquired with cash of £0.6m and the initial consideration will be financed out of the Group’s existing £65m debt facility.

The existing executive management team led by Nick Merryfield, the founding Managing Director, and Paul Midgley will remain with the business and they, along with five other individuals, comprise the vendors of the Business.

Nick Merryfield, talking about the process said, “I must thank Fusion for orchestrating the sale process professionally and with great skill. As a leading provider of business intelligence, data analysis, workflow tools and other services to pharmaceutical companies in the UK we wanted to work with an M&A house that understood our business and the marketplace. Mark was our point man and was key in engineering a successful outcome.”

 

NHiS has been in operation since 2007 and is a leading provider of business intelligence, data analysis, workflow tools and other services to pharmaceutical companies in the UK. Around 40% of its revenue is derived from subscriptions and the business has enjoyed high overall renewal rates as defined by customer spend in excess of 90%. Over 75% of NHiS revenue is delivered digitally.

The Business will form part of the Wilmington Healthcare Division and will work closely with the highly complementary Binley’s Healthcare Information business.

NHiS’s last annual results to March 2012, showed revenue of £1.8m, up 45% from the prior year and profits before tax and nonrecurring costs of £0.8m. The Business has seen a strong start to the year and turnover for the first nine months increased by 20%. Deferred income as 31st December 2012 was up 50% on 31st December 2011. Gross Assets at 31st March 2012 were £1.6m. 

Charlie Brady, Chief Executive of Wilmington Group, said;

“NHiS is an innovative business that has built up a major business intelligence and technology capability in a complementary area where our own Binleys Healthcare Information continues to see good growth potential. The Business will benefit from being part of a larger group with the infrastructure and resources of Binleys. We are particularly pleased that the existing highly experienced management team are joining the Wilmington Group and look forward to working with them as they continue to develop NHiS”. 

UK, London & Nottingham

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A FUSION DEAL: CRU Group acquires Fertecon Research Centre

October 28, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Fusion Corporate Partners are pleased to announce our latest deal. Fertecon Research Centre, the phosphates and sulphur analysis and price-forecasting business, has been sold CRU Group. Paul Kelly, Director at Fusion, acted exclusively for the vendors. The FRC team and product range will join CRU’s long-established fertilizer analysis and consultancy operation. The terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

Michael Mew and Ian Service, the two owners of Fertecon Research Centre, will continue to work on the FRC products. Sarah Marlow, FRC’s phosphates analyst, will also be joining CRU’s fertilizer team, working across CRU’s expanded phosphates portfolio.

FRC was founded in 1991 and has a reputation for the strength and consistency of its analysis, and the loyalty of its customers. In the phosphates field, FRC publishes quarterly forecasting analysis reports on concentrated phosphates and phosphate rock, as well as the Phosphates Datafile and a monthly report on the global DAP market.

FRC also publishes a quarterly forecasting and analysis report on sulphur, along with a monthly market update. The next FRC product to be published post-acquisition will be the phosphate rock outlook, out this month.

The FRC acquisition strengthens and extends CRU’s existing portfolio of fertilizer analysis. CRU publishes its Phosphate Fertilizer and Phosphate Rock Market Outlooks, accompanied by cost reports covering finished phosphates and phosphate rock, as well as Market Outlooks for Sulphur and Sulphuric Acid. This year CRU has invested in developing the methodologies and format of its portfolio of Market Outlooks, increasing their value, robustness and ease-of-use for customers.

Nick Morgan, Chief Executive of CRU, said: “We saw in FRC strong products built on a foundation of long years in the industry. We see major value in the experience and reputation of the three analysts who join us and who between them have spent more than 90 years in these markets. We are very pleased to welcome them to CRU.”

Both Michael Mew and Ian Service welcomed the acquisition, saying: “This is an exciting development, bringing together two of the most experienced companies in the fertilizer industry analysis sector.  FRC subscribers in the sulphur and phosphate industries will benefit from the additional resources that will become available, not least CRU’s established consulting group, CRU Strategies, its world-wide network of offices and its widely acclaimed phosphate and sulphur conferences.”

Previous CRU acquisitions:

1986 – British Sulphur Consultants
1996 – Resource Strategies Inc
2006 – Commodity Metals Management Company
2012 – Ryan’s Notes

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About CRU: Founded in 1969, CRU Group is the leading, independent, global metals, mining and fertilizer analysis, consultancy and conference business.  Employing more than 225 staff in London, Beijing, Pittsburgh, Santiago and Mumbai and with representative offices in Sydney and Sao Paolo, CRU is dedicated to promoting quality analysis and insight to its global customer base.

About FRC: Fertecon Research Centre was formed in 1991 and since then has provided analysis and price forecasting in the sulphur and phosphates field.  Between them owners Michael Mew and Ian Service have 76 years of experience.

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