McGraw-Hill to Sell Education Business to Apollo for $2.5 Billion

November 27, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

McGraw-Hill  is to sell its McGraw-Hill Education business to Apollo Global Management for $2.5 billion.  Earlier reports suggested that McGraw-Hill had hoped to achieve a $3 billion sale.

McGraw-Hill announced a restructuring program in September 2011. After the sale of the education business McGraw-Hill will becoming a more focused financial services company and will change its name to McGraw-Hill Financial,

“After carefully considering all of the options for creating shareholder value, the McGraw-Hill Board of Directors concluded that this agreement generates the best value and certainty for our shareholders and will most favorably position the world-class assets of McGraw-Hill Education for long-term success,” said Harold McGraw III, Chairman, President and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies who will lead McGraw Hill Financial once the transaction is complete.  “We were able to secure an attractive outcome and create additional balance sheet flexibility for McGraw Hill Financial.”

The Company will use the estimated proceeds of approximately $1.9 billion, net of tax and closing adjustments, to “sustain its share repurchase program, to make selective tuck-in acquisitions that enhance McGraw Hill Financial’s portfolio of powerful brands, and to pay off any short-term borrowing obligations.”

McGraw-Hill received financial advice from Evercore Partners and Goldman, Sachs & Co., and legal advice from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Clifford Chance.

Apollo received financial advice from Credit Suisse, UBS Investment Bank and BMO Financial Group.  The financing is provided by Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Jefferies, UBS Investment Bank, Nomura and BMO.  Apollo received legal advice from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP.

USA, New York, NY

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Viggle to acquire GetGlue for $25M cash and 48.3M shares

November 19, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Viggle Inc., the television loyalty service, is to acquire GetGlue, the social TV app. Viggle will pay $25 million in cash and 48.3 million shares of stock for GetGlue. Viggle Inc. will operate the Viggle and GetGlue brands, and GetGlue founder and CEO Alex Iskold will join Viggle Inc. in a senior executive position on its management team and as a member of its Board of Directors. Viggle will also absorb all 34 GetGlue employees.

Robert F.X. Sillerman, Executive Chairman and CEO of Viggle said,“With this deal, we are combining very experienced and creative product, engineering and management teams that will continue to build great user experiences and provide industry leading platforms for consumers, networks and advertisers. “We will also be vastly increasing the Viggle user base and quadrupling our network partnerships. Viggle and GetGlue users can look forward to using the apps they have come to love as we add new and appealing features made possible by the combined resources of this clear industry leader.”

Founded in 2007, New York City-based GetGlue has than 3.2 million registered users as well as a database with more than 500 million entertainment ratings and check-ins. GetGlueHD provides customers with a TV guide for the mobile era, listing both TV and online content in calendar form.

Today’s deal is another in a series of recent acquisitions by companies run by Sillerman. In the past five months, Sillerman’s SFX Entertainment bought two Electronic Dance Music companies – Disco Donnie Presents and Life in Color, (formerly Dayglow).

USA, New York

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American City Business Journals acquires Streetwise Media,

November 17, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

American City Business Journals, the USA’s largest print and online publisher of local business news, has acquired Streetwise Media, a Boston-based digital media company that uses a community publishing platform to cover local news. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Streetwise currently operates two web sites – www.bostinno.com in Boston and www.inthecapital.com in Washington, D.C. – that focus on local news about business, innovation and technology, education, politics and lifestyles.  The sites are targeted at young professionals in their 20’s and 30’s.

Collectively, the Streetwise sites attracted more than 2.6 million unique visitors in the last month and had more than 9 million page views.

“In a short amount of time, Streetwise has attracted a very loyal and robust audience that is different from but complementary to what we do at our business journals in Boston, Washington and elsewhere,” said Whitney Shaw, president and chief executive officer of ACBJ.

“We’re looking forward to helping Streetwise grow its business significantly and feel that many of the things we experienced building American City have a direct application to their efforts.”

Streetwise founders Chase Garbarino and Kevin McCarthy will remain with the company as chief executive officer and chief technology officer, respectively.  The company will continue to be based in Boston.

USA, Charlotte, NC & Boston, MA

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Mitre Media acquires MunicipalBonds.com and BondFunds.com

November 16, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Mitre Media, a publisher of niche financial media assets, has acquired MunicipalBonds.com. MunicipalBonds.com is source of municipal bond market data and pricing information for individual investors and financial advisors. Mitre Media also acquired BondFunds.com as a part of the same transaction. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in February 2012, Mitre Media has acquired flagship properties in other top finance verticals including Dividend.com and ETF Database. Mitre Media was founded by Tom Hendrickson, 29, who served as the former President of Investopedia through that site’s acquisition by Forbes.

Mitre Media founder Tom Hendrickson said, “At Investopedia, we pioneered providing basic financial information and definitions across all financial categories. With Mitre Media, our goal is to go deep within each category and operate the premier site. With MunicipalBonds.com, we saw a leader in a valuable niche with a very valuable demographic to advertisers. We are able to apply our expertise at scale to deliver the best in financial information to the investing public.”

Mitre Media plans on acquiring or launching sites in up to 20 additional financial categories through 2013. The company has raised over $8.5 million from investors including iNovia Capital, a leading venture capital firm.

USA, New York, NY

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Penton Media acquires Farm Progress From Fairfax Media for $80M

November 16, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Penton Media has acquired Farm Progress from Fairfax Media Limited of Sydney, Australia. The acquisition more than doubles Penton’s position in agriculture, which becomes the company’s largest sector group. The purchase price was $79.9 million before certain adjustments.

Farm Progress features four of the industry’s leading farm trade events, including America’s largest outdoor farm show, a broadcast division, and many well-established media brands. They join Penton Agriculture’s portfolio of market-leading franchises.

“Our investment is supported by several inarguable global economic trends including rising demand for nutrition, limited arable land and water, and strong export potential for agriculture products, capital equipment and related production technology into developing countries,” said Penton CEO David Kieselstein.

Farm Progress will become part of the Penton Agricultural Group reporting to Penton Senior Vice President, Dan Bagan. Jeff Lapin, president of Farm Progress, will leave the company at the end of the year. Farm Progress will remain headquartered in St. Charles, IL.

USA, New York, NY, & USA, St Charles, IL & Australia, Sydney

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Nielsen, NM Incite acquires SocialGuide

November 16, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

NM Incite, a joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey & Company, has acquired SocialGuide, a leading provider of social TV measurement, analytics and audience engagement solutions.  Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

SocialGuide is a real-time social TV capture service covering programming across 232 U.S. TV channels in English and Spanish, and over 30,000 programs.  Built for linear TV, SocialGuide’s intelligent analytics and engagement platform provides insight on the social impact of TV, enabling networks to engage with the social fan base in realtime.

SocialGuide will be integrated immediately into NM Incite, the hub of Nielsen’s social media measurement and analytics efforts.  SocialGuide’s software technology and data streams complement NM Incite’s existing software and data solutions.  Together, Nielsen, NM Incite and SocialGuide will focus on efforts to quantify the relationship between social TV and TV ratings to enable advertisers to maximize the impact of their spend, and provide new research metrics to understand social TV’s impact on consumer behavior and viewing habits.

“The opportunity in social TV is too big to ignore and there is a need for standard metrics and research to uncover the effect of social TV on programming and advertising strategies,” said Andrew Somosi, CEO of NM Incite.  “TV networks are expanding their research, advertising and engagement efforts across social media. The powerful combination of Nielsen, NM Incite and SocialGuide will enable us to deliver unparalleled insights and capabilities to our TV and advertiser clients.”

USA, New York, NY

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Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc announces annual results

November 15, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc has announced annual results to September 2012

Highlights

Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC, the international online information and events group, achieved a record adjusted profit before tax of £106.8m for the year to September 30 2012, against £92.7m in 2011.  Adjusted diluted earnings a share were 65.9p (2011: 56.1p).  The directors recommend an 18% increase in the final dividend to 14.75p, giving a total for the year of 21.75p (2011: 18.75p), to be paid to shareholders on February 14 2013.

Total revenues for the year increased by 9% to £394.1m.  Underlying revenues, excluding acquisitions, increased by 3%.  The acquisition of Ned Davis Research (NDR) in August 2011 has helped increase the proportion of revenues generated from subscriptions to more than 50% for the first time.  Headline subscription revenues increased by 17% to £199.7m and underlying subscriptions, excluding NDR, by 5%.

The adjusted operating margin was unchanged at 30%.  Costs, particularly headcount, have remained tightly controlled throughout the year.  At the same time, the group has increased its investment in technology and new products as part of its online growth strategy.

Net debt at September 30 was £30.8m compared with £88.5m at March 31 and £119.2m at September 30 2011.  In the absence of any significant acquisitions, net debt has fallen by £88.4m since the start of the year, reflecting the group’s strong cash flows and an operating cash conversion rate* in excess of 100%.  The group’s net debt is now at its lowest level for more than a decade and its robust balance sheet provides plenty of headroom for the group to pursue its acquisition strategy.

As highlighted in previous trading updates, market conditions became noticeably tougher from June.  The uncertainty over Europe remains, as does a solution to the pending US fiscal cliff.  Meanwhile global financial institutions face the combined challenges of difficult markets, increased capital requirements and a tougher regulatory environment.  Inevitably they have responded by cutting costs, particularly people, and exiting some parts of their business.  However, the outlook for emerging markets, which account for more than a third of the group’s revenues, is more positive. The board expects this challenging trading background to continue at least into the early part of 2013.

Commenting on the results, chairman Richard Ensor said: “The record results for the year reflect the challenging market conditions as well as the successful implementation of our strategy.  Investment in online information businesses and emerging markets has created a global portfolio with a resilient business model.  Subscription revenues now account for more than 50% of group revenues, and more than a third of our revenues is derived from emerging markets. In 2013, we will continue to invest in our products to ensure that we are well placed to benefit from any improvement in the global economy.”

Read the full announcement here

UK, London

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Permira acquires Ancestry.com for $1.6 billion

November 14, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

According to the Wall Streert Journal, European private-equity firm Permira is buying genealogy website Ancestry.com for $1.6 billion.

Ancestry.com has more than two million subscribers who pay at least $12.95 a month for its content and online tools. The purchase price is $32 a share and it includes vesting of outstanding options. The price is a 40 percent premium from the price when word of the company being offered for sale surfaced in June. As a result of the deal, Ancestry.com will carry  ”just under $1 billion” in debt.

The buyout group includes the private-equity firm’s co-investors; members of Ancestry.com’s management, including Chief Executive Tim Sullivan and Chief Financial Officer Howard Hochhauser; and Spectrum Equity, which owns about 30 percent of Ancestry.com.

USA, Utah & UK, London

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j2 Global Acquires Ziff Davis, Inc.

November 13, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

j2 Global, Inc., the provider of business cloud services, has acquired Ziff Davis, Inc. Ziff Davis sites include PCMag.com, ComputerShopper, ExtremeTech, Geek.com, Toolbox.com and LogicBUY.com.

The purchase price was approximately $167 million, net of certain post-closing adjustments, and was funded out of j2’s cash on hand. The transaction is anticipated to be immediately accretive and to contribute approximately $60 million to 2013 revenues. After giving effect to this transaction, j2 has over $300 million in cash and investments.

“We have years of experience and significant interest in the digital media and online marketing space, both as a large scale consumer of advertising (~$50M per year) and as a seller of advertising on our ad supported properties (e.g. eFax Free) and a provider of marketing and advertising services through Campaigner®,” said Hemi Zucker, j2’s chief executive officer. “This acquisition brings scale to this effort with a top leadership team deeply committed to building the business through organic growth, which we expect to continue. This is our 40th acquisition and we plan to grow the business in the same way we have our others – through a combination of internal growth and acquisitions.”

As a result of this transaction, j2 anticipates that its revenues for 2012 will exceed the top end of its previous estimate of between $345 million and $365 million. In addition, j2 reaffirms that its 2012 non-GAAP earnings per diluted share will exceed that of 2011.

USA, Los Angeles, CA

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UBM acquires outstanding 50% stake of Canada Newswire for £30.1m

November 1, 2012 — Fusion DigiNet

UBM company PR Newswire has acquired the outstanding 50% share in its Canada Newswire (CNW) business from the PA Group Limited (PA Group) for a cash consideration of £30.1m. Following the transaction, UBM will retain its 17% interest in the PA Group.

Established in 1960, CNW is the leading newswire provider in Canada, distributing approximately 90,000 wire releases per year. It is also the country’s largest investor relations webcast provider and a leading regulatory filing agent. In 2011 CNW generated revenues of £30.8m.

UBM has fully consolidated CNW’s results reflecting its direct and indirect ownership of 58.5%. The acquisition will not directly affect reported consolidated revenue or operating income. The transaction will eliminate the non-controlling interest in CNW profit which in 2011 was £2.3m.

Full ownership will enable PR Newswire to implement an aligned commercial, product development and infrastructure strategy across its North American business. Alignment is expected to result in incremental revenues in Canada by providing customers with access to PR Newswire’s full range of product offerings and by enabling the two organisations to work together in accelerating the trend towards higher engagement products. Cost savings from the integration of the businesses and technology platform are expected to be broadly offset by restructuring costs in the balance of 2012 and 2013. The return on this investment is expected to exceed UBM’s cost of capital in 2013 and subsequent years.

UK, London & Canada, Montreal and Quebec City

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