TechMediaNetwork acquires mobile technology magazine and website LAPTOP

June 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

TechMediaNetwork, a digital publisher and content provider of consumer technology and science news, is to purchase the assets of LAPTOP and LaptopMag.com, the mobile technology magazine and website, in a private sale. The deal is expected to close in July. LAPTOP’s management team and editorial staff will become part of TechMediaNetwork, and join it at its relocated offices in New York City.

“Mobile is the hottest area in technology, and with LAPTOP’s focus on mobility and quality content, we get to show off our strengths in distribution and advertiser ROI, making this union a perfect fit,” said Jerry Ropelato, CEO of TechMediaNetwork. “We are excited about the synergies of our businesses and the opportunities for growth.”

In October 2009, TechMediaNetwork purchased the consumer division of Imaginova that includes SPACE.com, LiveScience.com and Newsarama.com, and began executing a strategy of quality technology and science titles.

USA, New York, NY

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Digital media services business DG to acquire MediaMind

June 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

DG, a provider of digital media services to the advertising, entertainment and broadcast industries, is to acquire and MediaMind Technologies, a global provider of integrated digital advertising solutions, in an all-cash transaction.

MediaMind is headquartered in New York, it has 37 sales and representation offices covering 64 countries. In 2010, MediaMind delivered campaigns for 9,000 brand owners using approximately 3,800 media and creative agencies across 8,200 global web publishers in 64 countries.

DG has offered to purchase all of MediaMind’s outstanding shares for $22.00 per share in cash. The total transaction value is $517 million equity value or $414 million enterprise value, taking into account over $100 million in cash on MediaMind’s balance sheet. The board of directors of MediaMind are recommending that MediaMind shareholders tender their shares in the tender offer.

Upon closing, Gal Trifon, President and CEO of MediaMind, will serve as DG’s Chief Digital Officer, leading DG’s online advertising business. Additionally, Ofer Zadikario, MediaMind’s Chief Solutions Officer, will join DG in the same position.

Scott Ginsburg, Chairman and CEO of DG said, “With its new global reach and enhanced product offerings, DG will gain critical mass and will have the unique ability to provide a suite of cross-platform advertising management and distribution services.”

Neil Nguyen, President and COO of DG said, “We are extremely pleased about this transaction, which greatly accelerates our international and digital growth strategy.

For the twelve months ending March 31, 2011 the companies had in excess of $100 million in digital advertising revenue on a pro forma basis. With the MediaMind acquisition, DG expects to realise approximately $15 million in cost synergies identified to date, with clear opportunities for enhanced revenue growth. The transaction will be funded by a combination of available cash and fully committed debt financing from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. MediaMind shareholders holding approximately 8.2 million common shares outstanding and 1.8 million options, as well as certain officers and pre-IPO investors, have agreed to tender their shares in the offer.

Goldman Sachs & Co. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisors and Latham & Watkins provided legal advice to DG. Qatalyst Partners acted as financial advisor and Davis, Polk & Wardwell LLP provided legal advice to MediaMind. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter 2011.

USA, Dallas, TX & New York, NY

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Reply.com completes acquisition of MerchantCircle Acquisition

June 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Reply! Inc., a marketplace for the acquisition of locally-targeted consumer traffic, has completed the acquisition of MerchantCircle, the largest online network of local business owners in the USA. Reply! has acquired MerchantCircle for about $60 million in cash and stock.

“We are pleased to have closed the MerchantCircle acquisition so quickly and we are excited to welcome MerchantCircle’s highly talented team into the Reply! family,” said Reply! founder and CEO Payam Zamani. “We believe the addition of MerchantCircle creates a perfect complement to our platform of locally-targeted online marketing solutions and will allow us to transform the way millions of merchants connect to consumers.”

Zamani is now the CEO of the combined company, called Reply! Inc.,

USA, San Ramon, CA

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Smart metering business PlotWatt secures $1 Million in seed funding

June 23, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet
PlotWatt, a company helping individuals and businesses reduce energy bills through personalised smart meter data analysis has secured $1 million in a seed round of funding led by Felicis Ventures.  The funds will be used by PlotWatt to scale its platform for both the commercial and residential markets.

USA, Durham, NC

 

 

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Thomson Reuters to sell its healthcare division

June 22, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

According to the Financial Times, Thomson Reuters have appointed Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co to sell its healthcare division. Bernstein Research and BNP Paribas have valued the business at between $850 million and $1.2 billion. The proceeds are expected to be reinvested in professional information and services in faster-growing markets such as Latin America and Asia.

Read the fully story here.

USA, New York, NY

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HubSpot acquires marketing automation company Performable

June 22, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Three months after receiving a $32 million Series D financing round, led by Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures, and Salesforce.com, inbound marketing software company HubSpot has acquired marketing automation company Performable for an undisclosed sum.

“I’ve known David since before he founded Compete.com,” commented Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. “He is not only a brilliant product person but also has a reputation for recruiting exceptional talent, and you can see that in the Performable team. This combination creates the best product development team in B2B software.”

“Combining Performable’s innovative product features with HubSpot’s all-in-one inbound marketing platform accelerates our goal of transforming the marketing industry,” said HubSpot Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Brian Halligan, who was recently named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year. “This acquisition is just the first in a series of partnerships, acquisitions and other announcements you can expect to see from us in the coming months.”

Performable’s 18-person team will join HubSpot at the company’s headquarters beginning June 20, growing the team to over 260 staff.

USA, Cambridge, MA

 

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Thomson Reuters acquires CorpSmart from Deloitte

June 22, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Thomson Reuters has acquired CorpSmart from Deloitte. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

A leader in the market, CorpSmart provides multinational corporations (MNCs) in South Africa with intelligent corporate tax compliance software. Using this web-based solution, MNCs are able to prepare monthly, quarterly and annual income tax computations as well as file South African IT14 tax returns.

This highly diverse market, which many MNCs have identified for growth and investment opportunities, is now recognised and referred to as a ‘frontier market’. The purchase of CorpSmart, which will be integrated into the ONESOURCE suite of solutions, will strengthen the expanding Tax & Accounting business and provide its customer base with the tools to develop business in this exciting market.

“South Africa has created an impressive financial and regulatory structure to position itself as the singular hub for the continent and as such, it rightly has the focus of multinational corporations and other major economic entities around the world,” said Brian Peccarelli, president of the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters.

“The CorpSmart acquisition is strategically and geographically important for the Tax & Accounting business as it marks the inaugural entry to the African market and will form part of our global offering,” concluded Brian Peccarelli.

“As MNCs look to new markets and regions like South Africa for investment, it is important that they have the right information about the local tax system and the best tools to help them achieve compliance,” commented Duane Newman, managing director, Deloitte and Touche Tax Technologies. “As a leader in the corporate and income tax technology sector within this market we have been able to deliver this expertise on a wide scale.”

UK, London & South Africa

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2. Deloitte

 


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GamersFirst acquires Fallen Earth

June 22, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

GamersFirst has acquired Fallen Earth from Fallen Earth, LLC. The current 12-person creative team behind Fallen Earth, headed by Lead Game Designer Marie “AroSei” Croall, will join GamersFirst’s development studio Reloaded Productions to lead the transition of Fallen Earth to a hybrid Free2Play game with an ongoing membership system. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Going forward GamersFirst will provide all publishing services, backend development and technical operations while Croall’s team will continue their work on the upcoming Alpha County expansion.

The Fallen Earth team is joined by GamersFirst veterans Tracy Spaight, executive designer, and Joseph Willmon, associate game director, to integrate the award-winning MMO into the broader GamersFirst universe. Spaight and Willmon bring years of Free2Play publishing and development expertise to an already stellar Fallen Earth crew.

Once transitioned to Free2Play, Fallen Earth will give free players completely unrestricted permanent access to every zone and instance in the game. Several types of services, items and conveniences will continue being sold in the Fallen Earth store. Subscriptions will be replaced by a tiered membership system that caters to players of all levels of engagement, and each membership will include reward points that can be used to obtain store items for free on a monthly basis.

Current subscribers who maintain their subscriptions through the estimated five month transition period will collect significant rewards when the game completes the transition, projected for Q4 of this year. “Veteran Rewards” will include lifetime upgrades to a premium tier membership for the price of an existing subscription, as well as unique veteran-only items, the value of which will be determined by the number of months the player subscribed between June 2011 and the completion of the transition.

“Anyone who played Fallen Earth knows just how rich and engaging its game world is, and we feel extremely lucky to bring this game into our family of free MMO games,” said Joe Rush, vice president of game operations for GamersFirst. “This acquisition gives Fallen Earth instant economies of scale as part of the GamersFirst family, and by sharing our many years of revenue generation strategies and publishing expertise we expect the Fallen Earth franchise to continue growing for years to come.”

“Fallen Earth has a number of unique and innovative game features, and we felt it was important to incorporate this outstanding creative team into Reloaded Productions’ staff,” said Bjorn Book-Larsson, COO of GamersFirst and head of Reloaded Productions. “It was important to retain what made Fallen Earth popular and unique, and we are therefore thrilled to have this particular band of passionate game creators joining our growing global studio team.”

USA, Irvine, CA & Cary, NC

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Euromoney Institutional Investor to acquire Ned Davis Research Group for £69M

June 21, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC (“Euromoney”), the international publishing, events and electronic information group, has agreed terms to acquire Ned Davis Research Group (“NDRG”), the US-based provider of independent financial research to institutional investors.

On completion, Euromoney expects to pay approximately US$112 million (£69 million) for an initial 87% interest in NDRG. The consideration will be funded from Euromoney’s existing committed borrowing facility. The remaining interest in NDRG will be acquired under an earn-out agreement, in two equal instalments, based on the profits of NDRG for the years to December 31 2012 and 2013. The maximum amount payable for a 100% interest in NDRG is $173 million. NDRG’s pre-tax profit for the year to December 31 2010 was US$11.8 million and the value of its gross assets at May 31 2011 was US$11.2 million.

UK, London & USA, Venice, FL

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UBM acquires 70% of US catering tradeshow business Catersource for $5 million

June 21, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

United Business Media has acquired a 70% equity stake in the Catersource catering conference and exhibition and its sister show Event Solutions, which serves the event planning industry. UBM has acquired the majority stake from Catersource’s private owners for a total cash consideration of $5 million, on behalf of UBM Live.

Founded in 1982 and based in Minneapolis, Catersource hosts an annual conference and exhibition for the USA catering and event planning industry, as well as awards events and supporting print and digital marketing platforms. The events take place annually during February and March in Las Vegas. This year’s Catersource and Event Solutions shows attracted over 10,000 delegates and more than 4,500 sponsor and exhibitor companies.

USA catering industry revenues grew at 9% in 2010 – exceeding $14 billion – with similar rates of growth forecast for this year. The USA catering industry is highly fragmented, comprising approximately 80,000 catering operations nationwide. Catersource serves both the institutional and private segments of the catering industry.

Catersource will become part of UBM Live, adding to UBM Live’s portfolio of events serving the Food & Leisure industries both in the USA and internationally. The portfolio includes brands such as Cruise Shipping, Food Ingredients, Health Ingredients, Leisure Industry Week and Confex.

Founder Michael Roman and his partner Kelvin Lee, together with Catersource’s 13 employees, will remain with the business following completion of the acquisition. In 2010 Catersource generated approximately $4 million of revenue.

The acquisition is expected to meet UBM’s cost of capital hurdle rate in its first full year of ownership.

Simon Foster, Chief Executive of UBM Live said:

“Catersource is the leading events business in the fast-growing US catering industry. We see strong opportunities to grow the brand by leveraging our US and worldwide events infrastructure, as well as driving synergies with other UBM events. We are delighted that Kelvin Lee, Mike Roman and their team will be joining UBM Live and look forward to working with them to develop the business going forward.”

UK, London & USA, Minneapolis, MN

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