Evidence.com acquires Familiar

October 14, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

TASER International is to acquire Familiar, Inc. The Familiar team will be joining EVIDENCE.com, a business unit of TASER. The Familiar team will conduct research and development initiatives for mobility technologies in law enforcement, focused specifically on new revenue opportunities that align with the EVIDENCE.com platform strategy.

Marcus Womack, Familiar’s CEO, will join the EVIDENCE.com team as General Manager of Next Generation Products.  The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Familiar, founded by Marcus Womack, Mike Bohlander, Ray Fortna and Josh Hepfer and backed by Greylock Partners, Index Ventures and Redpoint Ventures will be joining the EVIDENCE.com team to build secure and private next generation mobile technologies and cloud infrastructure for law enforcement and first responders.

“We are thrilled the Familiar team will be joining EVIDENCE.com,” said Jason Droege, President of EVIDENCE.com. “With the technology trend of mobility and video becoming essential to public safety agencies’ evidence workflow, the Familiar team’s experience moving video across mobile platforms will accelerate the execution of our mobile and cloud product strategy.”
“Making it easier for law enforcement to share and communicate information is at the core of the EVIDENCE.com service,” said Marcus Womack. “This fits naturally with Familiar’s experience building a secure and private network for sharing digital content among families. We are excited to join EVIDENCE.com because of their noble mission and the opportunity to build technologies that make communities safer.”

EVIDENCE.com will not continue to operate the Familiar service, but will deploy core technology components from their product into the future products they develop for the EVIDENCE.com platform. The Familiar team will be deployed to develop next generation products focusing on new revenue opportunities.

USA, Scottsdale, AZ

 

Posted in Content Media, Information Management, Internet Media, ~North America. Leave a Comment »

Euromoney Institutional Investor completes acquisition of HSBC’s Quantitative Techniques operation

October 2, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Euromoney logoEuromoney Institutional Investor PLC, the international online information and events group, has completed the acquisition of HSBC’s Quantitative Techniques operation with effect from September 30.  QT is the benchmark and calculation agent business of HSBC Bank plc which creates and maintains more than 100 equity and bond indices for HSBC’s Global Markets division and for over 60 external clients.

The business has been rebranded Euromoney Indices.  As part of the completion terms, HSBC has agreed to purchase index calculation services from Euromoney Indices for a minimum period of three years.

Previous reporting – Euromoney Institutional Investor to acquire HSBC’s Quantitative Techniques operation Posted on April 4, 2013

UK London

Related articles:

 

Posted in Content Media, Information Management, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »

Metropolis International acquires a majority shareholding in Websky Limited

August 13, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Expert-AgentMetropolis International has acquired a majority shareholding in Websky Limited. the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Websky, founded in 2003, is based in Frome, Somerset with 30 staff. The company provides its cloud based Expert Agent software solution to over 1600 Estate Agents and Lettings Agents throughout the United Kingdom. Over 15% of all properties sold and rented in the UK in 2012 were processed through Expert Agent.

Michael Griffiths, who stays on as MD of Websky, said: “This deal gives us chance to expand the product and provide an even better service to existing customers but particularly to the many estate agents that don’t yet benefit from our technology.”

Robert Marr, CEO of Metropolis said: “Expert Agent offers its users a market leading, low-cost and effective solution to manage their workload. I am delighted to invest in such a well-managed company looking to move on to the next stage of its development with Metropolis.”

UK, London & Somerset, Frome

Related articles:

Posted in Content Media, Information Management, Internet Media, ~Europe. Leave a Comment »

Experian – Preliminary results for the year ended 31 March 2013

May 9, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

experianExperian, the  information services company, has issued its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2013.

More details are available on the Experian website at www.experianplc.com

Strategic highlights

  • Strong FY13 performance; considerable strategic progress with our global growth programme gaining momentum and delivering strong results.
  • Notable performances from North America and Latin America, particularly in Credit Services, and from Consumer Services in the UK&I.

Financial highlights

  • Revenue from continuing activities up 10%, at constant exchange rates. Organic revenue growth of 8%. Total revenue from continuing activities up 6%. Total Group revenue of US$4.7bn (2012: US$4.5bn).
  • Strong margin progression. EBIT margin from continuing activities up 40 basis points to 26.6%. EBIT from continuing activities up 13%, at constant exchange rates. Total EBIT from continuing operations of US$1,253m up 7%.
  • Profit before tax from continuing operations of US$440m (2012: US$689m), after an IFRS charge of US$558m (2012: US$325m) from the movement in the Serasa put option.
  • Benchmark profit before tax of US$1,195m, up 6%. Benchmark EPS of 85.7 US cents, up 9%. Basic EPS from continuing operations of 25.2 US cents (2012: 66.8 US cents).
  • Net debt of US$2,938m at 31 March 2013. 94% conversion of EBIT into operating cash flow.

Shareholder returns

  • Second interim dividend of 24.00 US cents per ordinary share, to give full-year dividend of 34.75 US cents per ordinary share, up 9%.
  • Plan to initiate a share purchase programme totalling US$500m over the next 12 months (inclusive of share purchases in respect of employee share plans that vest).

Sir John Peace, Chairman, commented, “Experian has delivered excellent financial results and has built firm foundations to sustain premium performance into the future. In keeping with our capital strategy, which seeks to balance growth investment with returns to shareholders, we are today announcing a further share repurchase programme, along with a 9% increase in our full-year dividend.”

UK, London

Related articles:

Posted in Company Results, Content Media, Information Management, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Thomson CompuMark acquires the trademark business of Onscope

April 18, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

compumarkThomson CompuMark, a Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property & Science business has acquired the trademark business of Onscope, a provider of trademark searching, monitoring and online screening in Canada. The terms of the deal was not disclosed. Onscope’s search support services for the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and its linguistics and translation services were not included.

Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Onscope is a  provider of trademark search and watch services offered in French and English.

“The addition of Onscope’s trademark business to our IP Solutions portfolio solidifies Thomson CompuMark as the preeminent source ofonscope trademark research and protection offerings across Canada,” said Viji Krishnan , vice president of Thomson CompuMark. “Onscope’s clients will benefit from the extensive trademark expertise Thomson CompuMark provides, including access to the world’s largest, global network of trademark data, around-the-clock service throughout the business week, and a host of offerings to drive brand value and protect intangible assets.”

USA, North Quincy, MA & Canada, Montreal, Quebec

Related articles:

Posted in Content Media, Information Management, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~North America. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Elsevier acquires Mendeley – cloud-based research management and collaboration platform

April 9, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

elsevierElsevier has acquired Mendeley, a London-based company that operates a global research management and collaboration platform. Researchers use Mendeley’s desktop and cloud-based tools to manage and annotate documents, create citations and bibliographies, collaborate on research projects and network with fellow academics.

“Mendeley is an innovative company with great culture, talent and collaborative spirit, and we will keep it that way,” said Olivier mendeleyDumon, Managing Director of Academic and Government Research Markets at Elsevier. “Not only that, but together we intend to scale and evolve Mendeley in ways that benefit the entire research community. We will provide greater access to content, data, and analytics tools to Mendeley’s users and its flourishing third-party app ecosystem, all of which will enable us to increase both Elsevier’s and Mendeley’s engagement with researchers.”

Launched in late 2008, Mendeley was the brainchild of three PhD students wanting an easier way to manage their research papers and collaborate with colleagues overseas. They developed a desktop app that could automatically extract metadata and keywords from PDFs, thus turning loose collections of PDFs into structured, searchable research paper databases that were synchronized to the cloud.

From the start, they were thrilled by the idea that this crowd-sourced data would allow Mendeley to analyse research trends across academic disciplines in real time, show readership statistics for individual research papers, connect researchers with similar interests and generate research paper recommendations based on collaborative filtering.

The Netherlands, Amsterdam & UK, London

Related articles

Posted in Content Media, Information Management, Internet Media, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

IHS acquires Fekete Associates

April 8, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

ihs_logo_mpInformation and analytics company IHS Inc. , has acquired Fekete Associates, a provider of integrated reservoir management software and services to the oil and gas industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The acquisition of Fekete plays an important role in better supporting our customers as we continue to seamlessly connect IHS information and expertise with the right tools and technologies linked to key energy workflows,” said IHS Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jerre Stead. “The products and services offered by Fekete build on existing IHS Energy solutions and provide new opportunity to expand Fekete offerings to a high-growth global energy marketplace.”

Fekete is a provider of integrated reservoir and production engineering tools and workflow solutions to the oil and natural gas exploration and production industry. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and with an office in Houston, the company’s digital solutions help customers find and develop new oil and gas reserves, and optimize production from new and existing assets by processing, analyzing, interpreting and modeling digital subsurface information.

“Combining Fekete workflow tools with IHS Energy information will create new efficiencies for customers and speed time to decisions in exploration and production. In a very dynamic global energy environment, providing integrated solutions that improve productivity and allow an even greater level of insight in making investment decisions is a great outcome for our customers and for IHS,” said IHS President and Chief Operating Officer Scott Key.

USA, Englewood, CO & Canada, Calgary, Alberta

Related articles:

Posted in B2B Services, Content Media, Energy & Environmental Services, Information Management, Market Data & Information, ~North America. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Experian acquires Decisioning Solutions

April 3, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

experianExperian has acquired Decisioning Solutions Inc., a provider of a hosted SaaS customer acquisition platform.

Founded in 2004 and based in Canada, Decisioning Solutions provides SaaS solutions to small and mid-tier companies, including financial institutions and telecommunication companies in the US and Canada, to manage their customer acquisitions and loan originations. Decisioning Solutions’ products are multi-lingual and easily deployed to different geographies.

Customer acquisition and origination is a key sector for Experian globally and this acquisition provides Experian with a scalable, cross-industry global platform to complement its existing mid- and large-tier, on-premise and country specific solutions.

It is a further step in Experian’s strategy to extend its global lead in credit information and analytics and will form part of Experian’s Decision Analytics activities. The acquisition has been funded from Experian’s existing cash resources

UK, London & USA, New York, NY & Canada, Toronto

Related articles:

Posted in Content Media, Information Management, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, ~Europe, ~North America. Tags: . Leave a Comment »

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

Related Articles:

Wilmington Deals

Media and Information

Fusion Deals

Media and Information

Business Services
Events, Broadcast and Other deals
Posted in B2B Services, Consultancy, Content Media, Fusion Deal, Information Management, Internet Media, Market Data & Information, Publishers, ~Europe. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Liberty Global confirms acquisition of Virgin Media – Deal Terms

February 6, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Liberty Global have confirmed that they are to acquire Virgin Media in a cash & stock merger.

Deal Terms

  • Virgin Media 2012 results (unaudited)Virgin Media
  • Revenue $6.6 billion
  • OCF $2.7 billion
  • OCF margin 41%

Virgin Media shareholders will receive for each share:

  • $17.50 in cash
  • 0.2582 shares of Liberty Global Series A common stockLiberty-Global-logo
  • 0.1928 shares of Liberty Global Series C common stock

Valuation

  • $47.87 per Virgin Media share
  • 24% premium to closing price
  • Implied Virgin Media equity value of $16.0 billion & enterprise value of $23.3 billion
  • Represents 8.8x 2012 OCF multiple
  • Represents 7.0x 2013E OCF multiple, after adjusting for synergies & taxes
  • Accretive to Free Cash Flow

Ownership

  • Liberty Global shareholders expected to own 64%
  • Virgin Media shareholders expected to own 36%

Path to completion

The transaction is subject to majority LGI & Virgin Media shareholder votes, regulatory approvals & customary closing conditions. The deal is expected to close in Q2 2013.

For full details see the Virgin Media Investor Call Presentation here.

USa, Englewood, CO & UK, London

Related articles

Posted in Broadcasting, Content Media, Information Management, Internet Media, Publishers, ~Europe, ~North America. Tags: , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts
Newer posts »