After Gartner snapped Burton and AMR, we were expecting Forrester to retaliate or maybe IDG (IDC’s parent company) to expand in the end-user advisory space (RAS) to complement their quantitative offerings, but not THAT ONE.
After some rumours on the Ovum side, we’ve done a few checks and got a confirmation of the following: Informa has made an offer for Forrester!
Informa is a GBP1.2m supplier of business-to-business information through some of the longest-standing brands in the world of publishing, conferences, exhibitions and training. They have some history back to 1734 when the first issue of the maritime publication Lloyd’s List was first pinned to the wall of Edward Lloyd’s City of London coffee shop.
Since then, they have merged with the Taylor & Francis Group, a world-leading academic publisher in 2004, have acquired IIR Holdings and Datamonitor (itself the parent company of Ovum) in 2005 and 2007 respectively, as t! hey have a strategy to expand thebusiness through both acquisition and organic growth.
It seems to work for them as they boast a CAGR of 14% (YE09), Informa has a strong track record of creating value from organic growth and acquisitions.
We hear they have submitted an offer to buy the outstanding stock of Forrester (FORR) for $1.4b, a premium of about 20% on the current share price of $38.29. Which means that George Colony can buy a penthouse in Manhattan as well. Nice. More details here.
4/4 update -here’s a quick roundup of the news published last Friday:
On their side, Gartner has been pretty busy too -launching a new magic quadrant:
http://blogs.gartner.com/mark_mcdonald/2011/04/01/gartner-announces-a-new-magic-quadrant/
I think HfS is well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. http://www.horsesforsources.com/the-painsharing-paradox_040111
Unfortunately, contractual obligations preclude me from providing a deep analysis of this news item. Suffice it to say that…well, attribute whatever comments you want to make to me. I now have plausible deniability.