Pamplin Media Group acquires six weekly newspapers from Eagle Newspapers

January 9, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

pamplinPamplin Media Group, Oregon’s largest community news organization and a subsidiary of R.B. Pamplin Corp., has acquired six weekly newspapers from Eagle Newspapers, a Salem-based company. The newspapers included in the acquisition are: the Canby Herald, Madras Pioneer, Molalla Pioneer, Newberg Graphic, Wilsonville Spokesman and Woodburn Independent.

“We are excited to add these outlets to the family of Pamplin community newspapers,” said Dr. Robert B. Pamplin Jr., owner of Pamplin eagleMedia Group and R.B. Pamplin Corp. “This acquisition strengthens our ability to share important community news with more residents in more places.”

“Now, we’ll reach half a million print readers each week, and hundreds of thousands more online and through our radio stations,” Pamplin added. “This puts us on equal footing, in terms of reach, with any other media in Oregon. With this acquisition, there’s no media larger in the state than Pamplin Media Group.”

Eagle Newspapers was founded in 1948 by former Oregon Gov. Elmo Smith. Under the leadership of his son, former Congressman Denny Smith, the company grew to 25 holdings in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, including dailies in The Dalles and Sunnyside, Wash. The company also owns four press plants, a mailing service and publishes various other specialty publications and phone books.

Pamplin Media Group also owns the Portland Tribune and 17 other newspapers throughout Portland, including newspapers in Gresham, Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Tigard and Clackamas.

USA, Portland, OR & Salem. MA

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Aegis Media acquires Lucidity Digital in Ireland

January 9, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

AegisAegis Group plc, the media and digital communications group, has acquired Lucidity Digital, a web design and development agency in Ireland.

Founded in 2003, Lucidity is one of the fastest growing agencies in the Irish market, providing a wide range of creative and production lucidity2solutions for both web and mobile. The acquisition of Lucidity will allow Aegis Media clients access to a full suite of digital creative and production services and will further strengthen the Aegis Media Digital position in the Irish market. Lucidity will become part of Aegis’s digital creative origination network, Isobar, and will be re-branded Lucidity Isobar in Ireland.

Liam McDonnell, CEO of Aegis Media Ireland, said: “We are delighted to be acquiring Lucidity, which will enhance the prospects of our business in the Irish market, allowing us to offer greater integration across digital media and creative. We welcome the Lucidity team into the fold and look forward to working with our new colleagues to leverage the exciting opportunities this acquisition will bring to our business in Ireland.”

UK, London & Ireland, Dublin

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InMobi acquires Overlay Media

January 9, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

inmobiIndependent mobile advertising network InMobi has acquired Overlay Media. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Overlay Media is a developer of mobile data analytics based technologies. The company’s flagship product, the Context Engine, enables intelligent on-device behaviour, wiser use of battery power and increased personalisation.

Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO at InMobi said, “We are excited to add amazing talent to InMobi. This overlaylogoacquisition, along with Metaflow Solutions and MMTG Labs, will help us to continue to be at the forefront of delivering highly engaging content to consumers globally.”

The Overlay Media team will be based from the InMobi London EMEA HQ.

Singapore & UK, London

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IAC acquires Tutor.com

January 7, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

IACIAC has acquired Tutor.com, an online tutoring solution. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 1998, Tutor.com connects students anytime, anywhere with more than 2,500 screened and qualified tutors for immediate one-to-one sessions. Historically focused on core K-12 subjects, Tutor.com has more recently expanded into AP courses, test prep, college-level curriculum, and real-time writing help.

“Tutor.com has done the hard part, having built over many years an incredible nationwide network of high quality tutors ready to help tutorstudents improve their learning,” said Greg Blatt , CEO of IAC. “We think it’s ripe for us to accelerate usage by bringing to bear our consumer Internet expertise in areas like product, marketing and distribution. It’s not often we find a company with such untapped potential that our particular skill set can help unlock, in an area that truly helps people improve their lives, all at a compelling valuation. Although it’s small, we’re excited about the acquisition.”

George Cigale will remain CEO and continue to run the business from Tutor.com’s offices in New York City.

USA, New York, NY

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DMGT has completed its disposal of Northcliffe Media to Local World

January 7, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Previous reporting: Local World to acquire the regional publishing assets of Northcliffe and Iliffe Posted on November 21, 2012

DMGTDMGT has completed the disposal of Northcliffe Media, its regional newspaper business, to Local World. DMGT received cash proceeds of £52.5 million and shares representing a 38.7% stake in Local World, as indicated in the 21 November, 2012 announcement.

The Iliffe family, owners of Yattendon Group, have sold Iliffe News & Media to Local World in exchange for a 21.3% shareholding in the new business and Trinity Mirror has acquired a 20% shareholding. The remaining Local World shares were purchased by other investors including Artefact Group, an Investment Fund associated with Lord Ashcroft, and Odey Asset Management.

Northcliffe Media earned operating profits of £26 million from revenues of £213 million in the 12 months to September, 2012. DMGT localworldalso incurred £10 million of exceptional operating costs in respect of Northcliffe Media during the year. Local World’s pro forma combined operating profits are £29 million on revenues of £249 million for the year to 30 September, 2012.

DMGT has agreed with the Trustees of the Pension Funds affected that £30 million of the cash proceeds from the disposal will be paid into the Pension Funds. £15 million will be paid in the current financial year, of which approximately £5 million will be paid in respect of the Section 75 Employer’s Debt which arises as a result of the employees of Northcliffe Media leaving the Pension Funds. This follows a reorganisation of the Group in 2011 under which responsibility for the majority of the liabilities was apportioned to DMG Holdings Limited. The remaining £15 million will be paid in the 2013/14 financial year.

Key terms:

  • DMGT will to sell Northcliffe Media, its regional newspaper business for £52.5m in cash and a 38.7% shareholding in Local World. For the financial year ended 30 September 2011, Northcliffe Media had gross assets of £32m and made an operating profit of £17m.
  • The Iliffe family, owners of Yattendon Group, will sell Iliffe News & Media to Local World in exchange for a 21.3% shareholding in the new business.
  • Trinity Mirror will acquire a 20% shareholding in Local World for £14.2 million.
  • The remaining Local World shares will be purchased by other investors including Artefact Group, an Investment Fund associated with Lord Ashcroft, and Odey Asset Management.
  • Steve Auckland, currently Chief Executive of Northcliffe, will become CEO of Local World. Rachel Addison, Group Finance Director of Northcliffe, will assume the same role at the new company alongside a board of directors drawn from the main shareholders. The company will be chaired by David Montgomery.

Local World will become the fourth-largest regional newspaper publisher in the UK, with more than 107 print titles and 60 websites. DMGT will contribute more than 80 titles to the new venture, with another 36 coming from Iliffe News & Media.

The Local World transaction follows the disposal in November 2012 of Associated Neswpapers’ digital assets in central and eastern Europe for cash proceeds of € 32 million (£27 million). During the year to 30 September, 2012 these businesses accounted for £1.8 million of operating profit, £0.5m of share of profits from associates and £6 million of revenues.

UK, London

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Wolters Kluwer Health completes the acquisition of Health Language, Inc.

January 7, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

WaltersKluwerHealthWolters Kluwer Health, a provider of information and business intelligence for professionals, students and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health and pharmacy, has completed the acquisition of Health Language, Inc., a leader in the fast-growing Medical Terminology Management (MTM) market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“This acquisition of Health Language is a fit with our strategy to continually expand our market-leading point-of-care solutions portfolioHealthLanguage that helps customers around the globe realise the advantages of healthcare information technologies – within their business operations and at the point of care with patients,” said Arvind Subramanian , President & CEO, Wolters Kluwer Health Clinical Solutions. “Health Language is a recognized leader in the MTM field and the right expert to provide our customers with new levels of system interoperability to meet current and future healthcare information sharing needs.”

Health Language’s medical content terminology databases and software solutions enable hospitals, electronic medical record system providers (EMRs) and payers around the globe to manage, update and map disparate medical vocabularies and administrative codes used in U.S. and international settings. The company’s databases and software products include more than 180 standard terminologies and proprietary content sets to enable easier information sharing across many healthcare information technology systems.

The company also provides clinical content and professional services to enable interoperability, web-based terminology mapping, Meaningful Use compliance and ICD-10 conversion, a system of coding created by the World Health Organization that is in various phases of implementation worldwide. Health Language is headquartered in Denver, Colorado and has approximately 85 employees.

USA, Minneapolis, MN

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Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC acquires Californian conference business TTI/Vanguard

January 7, 2013 — Fusion DigiNet

Euromoney logoEuromoney Institutional Investor PLC, the international online information and events group, is expanding its membership events portfolio with the acquisition of TTI/Vanguard, which is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

Euromoney paid US$8 million to acquire 87% of the equity of TTI/Vanguard. The acquisition is expected to be earnings enhancing in itsTT! Vanguard first year.  The remaining equity will be acquired in two stages of an earn-out by December 2014.

TTI/Vanguard is a private membership organisation for executives who lead technology innovation in global organisations across the public, private and academic sectors. Enterprises subscribe to TTI/Vanguard’s conference series to explore how emerging and potentially disruptive technologies may affect their organisations, policy and society. Each of TTI/Vanguard’s five annual conferences is part classroom, part think-tank and part laboratory. At the core of TTI/Vanguard is its world-class Advisory Board of visionaries and futurists who inspire and develop TTI/Vanguard’s content direction (see footnote below).

Under its Institutional Investor brand, Euromoney runs a Financial Technology Forum in the United States and has a strong record of running and successfully building subscription memberships in asset management in the US, Europe and Asia. It now expects to apply this expertise to grow TTI/Vanguard’s business globally.

Dr. Len Kleinrock, past chairman, will remain a minority shareholder in the business and will be actively involved in TTI/Vanguard until at least December 2014.

“The acquisition of TTI/Vanguard is consistent with our strategy of applying our expertise to global sectors,” said Richard Ensor, Chairman of Euromoney. “This takes us into the high-technology content sector. Euromoney has a successful record of acquiring events businesses and accelerating their growth globally, as demonstrated over the past 15 years by the success of Institutional Investor which now has 13 subscription memberships around the world. We look forward to doing the same with TTI/Vanguard.”

Dr Kleinrock said: “Having successfully built TTI/Vanguard into a must-attend membership for heads of innovation and technology across a multitude of diverse industries from government to retail, finance to pharmaceuticals, I believe that Euromoney is ideally positioned to expand the TTI/Vanguard network and membership worldwide. We are confident that Euromoney’s portfolio and expertise will add tremendous value to what we have been consistently providing our members for more than 20 years. We look forward to sharing our know-how and experience and continuing to build a world-wide TTI/Vanguard community.”

UK, London & USA, Santa Monica, CA

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UPDATE: Tribal Group acquires International Graduate Insight Group

January 5, 2013 — askhabra

tribalTribal Group has announced that it has completed its acquisition of the entire issued share capital of International Graduate Insight Group (“i-graduate”). This news comes after its announcement on the 20th December that the provider of education, learning and training services worldwide had reached an agreement with i-graduate to acquire it, with the transaction completing on schedule.

The terms of the deal stated that Tribal Group will pay an initial amount of £2.86 million on completion and up to a maximum of £7.5 million subject to satisfaction of an earn-out criteria based on earnings over the 3 year period ending 31 December 2015. The unaudited profit before tax of International Graduate Insight Group Limited for the year ended 31 March 2012 was £423k and the value of gross assets at that time was £1,799k.

i-graduate is an independent benchmarking and analytics group, working in partnership with institutions and education organisations to provide evidence-based information on education experience and outcomes across higher education, further education and schools markets.  The business works with over 1,200 education institutions in 24 countries, receiving and analysing feedback from more than 1.3 million students of over 190 nationalities.  i-graduate will join Tribal’s Services business and will strengthen the Group’s evidence-based analytics offering.

i-graduate was founded in 2005 by Will and Lindsay Archer.  Will Archer will continue to lead the i-graduate business and will head up the integration of i-graduate’s offerings with Tribal’s existing financial benchmarking and analytic capabilities.

Tribal’s Chief Executive Officer, Keith Evans, commented: “This acquisition will enable us to strengthen our capabilities in this exciting and emerging area, expands our product offering to our existing customers and provides increased access for our existing products to the i-graduate customer base, both in the UK and in our targeted international markets.” The transaction is expected to be earnings accretive.

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UK, London

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UPDATE: Permira acquires Ancestry.com for $1.6 billion

January 5, 2013 — askhabra

215_largeEuropean private equity firm Permira has completed its acquisition of Ancestry.com for $1.6bn or $32 per share in cash. The price is a 40 percent premium from the price when word of the company being offered for sale surfaced in June and includes vesting of any outstanding options. As a result of the deal, Ancestry.com will carry  ”just under $1 billion” in debt. This comes news comes 2 weeks after reports that Ancestry.com would not be able to proceed with the sale unless it disclosed more information about the deal before a shareholder vote on December 27 2012 (Source).

Ancestry.com officials were required to change revenue projections and publicly disclose that provisions of the deal barred other bidders from attempting to top Permira’s offer, said Delaware Chancery Court Judge Leo Strine. The vote took place as scheduled with the sale approved by shareholders owning approximately 75% of Ancestry.com common stock. Permira has since acquired all outstanding shares of Ancestry.com and its stock ceased trading on the NASDAQ on December 28th 2012.

Genealogy website Ancestry.com is the world’s largest online family history resource has more than two million subscribers who pay at least $12.95 a month for its content and online tools. More than 11 billion records have been added to the site in the past 16 years. Ancestry users have created more than 41 million family trees containing approximately 4 billion profiles. The press release for the transaction states that “There are no anticipated changes in the Ancestry.com operations.”

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.

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USA, Utah & UK, London

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Pearson announces Investment in Nook Media

January 5, 2013 — askhabra

se_header_logo_pearsonPearson has made a strategic investment in NOOK Media LLC, a manufacturer of e-readers and tablets which also runs 674 college bookstores across America alongside its NOOK digital bookstore and content delivery platform. In the transaction, Pearson will invest $89.5 million in cash giving it a 5% equity stake. Following the transaction, Barnes & Noble will own approximately 78.2 percent of NOOK Media and Microsoft will own approximately 16.8 percent. Subject to certain conditions, Pearson will earn the option to purchase up to an additional five percent ownership in NOOK Media.

Nook Media was spun off from Barnes & Noble Inc earlier this year when it also announced a partnership with Microsoft, wherein the latter purchased a 17% stake in the new firm for $305m, which gave the firm a $1.7 billion post money valuation (source:http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/04/nook-media-officially-spins-out-of-bn-with-microsofts-help-plans-to-enter-ten-new-markets-by-next-year/). Pearson’s announcement also comes after company announced that holiday sales had declined compared to 2011 and that demand has been weaker than expected.

Will Ethridge, CEO of Pearson North America, said “Pearson and Barnes & Noble have been valued partners for decades,” and that “with this investment we have entered into a commercial agreement with NOOK Media that will allow our two companies to work closely together in […] making our content and services broadly available to students and faculty through a wide range of distribution partners.”

UK, London & USA, New York, NY

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