Ipreo is for sale, according to media reports.
Private equity group KKR is considering selling the capital markets data provider and investor relations communications tool for between $850 mn and $1 bn, the Financial Times reports, citing unidentified ‘people familiar with the matter’. A sale at that price could earn KKR double the $425 mn it paid for the unit when it bought it in May 2011.
KKR is likely to pitch the market intelligence firm to financial information providers such as Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, NASDAQ, McGraw Hill Financial and Markit, the FT reports. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have been selected to oversee the sale, the newspaper adds.
A year ago, NASDAQ bought the IR, PR and multimedia business units of Thomson Reuters for $390 mn, the FT points out. The units were merged under NASDAQ’s new global technology solutions unit, formed to serve around 10,000 clients worldwide, including IROs. The purchase was part of the exchange operator’s push to diversify its income stream away from trading.
The potential sale comes as the financial sector – one of Ipreo’s specialities – appears set to pick up again after years of slow growth following the global financial crash of 2008. IPOs, bond issuance and other activity followed by Ipreo are all likely to increase. Ipreo’s services to investor professionals include its IR workflow solution BD Corporate.
Ipreo, which was created in 2006 through the merger of i-Deal and Hemscott under the ownership of US private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, last year bought Discovery Data, a leading financial services industry provider of data on companies and professionals, and its financial services database, which covers 34,000 companies and 2 mn professionals.
